Mideast situation – Letter from Israel

LETTER DATED 10 MARCH 1975 FROM THE ACTING PERMANENT REPRESENTATIVE OF ISRAEL TO THE UNITED NATIONS ADDRESSED TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE

SECURITY COUNCIL

On instructions of my Government and further to my letter addressed to you on 6 March 1975 (S/ll654) regarding the recent PLO criminal attack in Tel Aviv, I have the honour to bring to your attention additional information in connexion with this attack.

1. On 7 March, the bodies of five more people were discovered in the rubble of the hotel attacked by the PLO terrorists thereby raising the number of our victims to eleven.

2. It has been established that on their way to the hotel the PLO killers also attacked a cinema and a hall where a wedding ceremony was taking place.

3. On 6 March, the Israeli navy apprehended the PLO vessel from which the murder squad rubber boat had been launched to the Tel Aviv beach.

4. Moussa Jumah, the survivor of the murder group that attacked the seafront hotel, and Hamid Nadim, a terrorist captured on the PLO vessel, admitted in an interview with the international media on 8 March that their squad had begun its training in Syria, near Damascus, seven months ago and had gone from there to the Syrian port of Latakia for naval training. In mid-February they had proceeded to Lebanon, where they had undergone further training at the PLO base of Sarafand, near Tyre.

On the night of 2/3 March, they set out from the Lebanese port of Sidon and boarded the vessel which had been chartered by the PLO.

Jumah was asked what was their original target.  He replied;  "It was a youth club." In reply to a further question, he said that Abu Jihad, one of the top leaders of the PLO. murder organization, described as the organizer in Lebanon of their mission, had told him that their objective was to create the impression that Fatah was  active.  When  asked why they shot civilians on purpose, Jumah answered "We shot at everything in sight."  Nadim said that his function aboard the PLO vessel was to observe events  "and to report to Beirut".

I have the honour to request that this letter be circulated as an offical document of the Security Council.