Arab raid alert false alarm

Press, 11 April 1978, Page 8

Arab raid alert false alarm

NZPA-Reuter Tel Aviv A fulhscale security alert was called off early yesterday after reports that Palestinian guerrillas had made a landing on the Israeli coast md seized a lorry turned out to be a false alarm. With the Palestinian raid on March 9 near Tel Aviv in which 35 Israeli civilians were killed as grim background, anti-guerrilla squads and troops went into action. Rumours of a raid stemmed from a report received by the police that a young woman had been ’heard broadcasting apparently from a radio installed in a farm truck — that the vehicle had been grabbed by up to 10 guerrillas who had killed a girl and taken four hostages near the port city of Ashdod.

The police said an employee of the Agrexco agricultural export company, Israel’s main farm-export organisation, was being questioned.

Immediately after the report, road blocks were thrown up and special antiguerrilla border police rushed to the area to scour the sand-dunes by t he light of flares.

, Units of the Civil Guard, i a part-time home defence force, were put on alert and special warnings were flashed to hotels in the Tel Aviv area.

A hotel was the intended target of last month s guerrilla strike.

But after an extensive, frantic hunt, an official spokesman said: “We have no evidence that terrorists were involved.” However, some hours after the original report, the Army spokesman said a routine state of alert was being maintained although there was no evidence a guerrilla raid had actually taken place. In Jerusalem, a Labour opponent of the hard-line policies the Prime Minister, (Mr Menachem Begin ), i< assured of election as Israel’s next President. Mr Yitzhak Navon was the only candidate put up by the 120-member Knesset (Parliament) when the list for the April 19 election closed.

Mr Begin said two months ago he would like the next President to be Professor Yitzhak Chavet, a scientist at Israel’s Atomic Energy Research Centre.