Early this year, land-hungry Israel sent bulldozers and workers to Lake Hula, began draining a marshland of 15,000 acres as a future home for 40,000 Israelis, forcibly evacuated 800 Arab villagers. But the Hula marshes are part of a disputed, 30-mile-long strip on the Syria-Israel border, theoretically under U.N. supervision; the sight of the bulldozers enraged the Syrians. They charged that the Israelis had abused the 1949 armistice agreement, that draining the land would give the Israelis a military advantage. When the Israelis ignored a U.N. order to call off their tractors, the Syrians began taking potshots at them. Syrian...
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