Further raids to come soon – P.L.O.

Press, 17 April 1979, Page 9

Further raids to come soon - P.L.O.

NZPA-Reuter Beirut The Palestine Liberation Organisation, announcing a commando raid, has given further notice that it will respond to the Egyptian-Israeli peace accord with renewed attacks against the Jewish State. The P.L.O. on Sunday said its commandos had carried out. an operation against the northern Israeli settlement of Tirat Zvi, south of Beisan. near the River Jordan. The Israelis said the four commandos who carried out the raid had been killed. The P.L.O. said all but four guerrillas had returned safely to base after inflicting heavy losses on the Israelis during the attack. The raid came as a further indication of stepped-up Palestinian commando operations in the wake of the Eygptian-Israeli pact, which the P.L.O. has condemned as a betrayal of Palestinian rights. The State-run Beirut Radio said the attack was followed by a one-hour artillery barrage by the Israelis and their Right-wing Lebanese allies against the southern Lebanese port of Tyre. Since the peace treaty was signed, the P.L.O. has increased its operations against Israel. Last week a Palestinian bomb attack in Tel Aviv’s central market triggered two days of hostilities during which Lebanese coastal towns were attacked by the Israeli Air Force.

A big question mark now appears to hang over the role Jordan is playing since the Egypt-Israel accord, which like most of the Arab world, Jordan has rejected. The Palestinians killed on Sunday had crossed into Israel from Jordan.

A Palestinian delegation recently held talks with Jordanian officials over ways to heal the rift that arose from Jordan’s bitter conflict with the Palestinians in the early 19705. But most observers m Beirut thought it improbable that Jordan would allow itself to be used as a springboard for big Palestinian attacks against Israel. Israeli officials and Army commanders yesterday repeated warnings to Jordan not to allow Palestinian guerrillas to use its territory as a base for attacks on Israel. “Jordan is going to have to bear the consequences,” one official said. LieutenantGeneral Rafael Eitan, Israeli Chief-of-staff, said the aborted attack could not have ’ been staged without the knowledge of the Jordanian authorities. A military statement charged that the guerrilla squad had aimed to attack defenceless civilians. It based its claim on the type of weapons taken from the dead guerrillas and the absence of printed leaflets usually carried by the •raiders.