Return to Suez

At 10 G.M.T. one morning last week, as the disengagement agreement specified, an Israeli officer formally surrendered Kilometer 101 to the United Nations Emergency Force. A little more than an hour later the last five Israeli half-tracks and Jeeps pulled out. The blue-helmeted U.N. force struck its olive-drab tent on the Cairo-Suez highway that had been the site for the first face-to-face meeting of Israeli and Egyptian officers in almost two decades. Finally, Egyptian troops reoccupied the road to Suez. TIME Correspondent Wil ton Wynn, who followed them, filed this report:

On the outskirts of Suez, swarms of soldiers and civilians in militia uniforms were waiting to meet us. They happily cut loose with machine-gun and rifle fire into the air. Groups of ten or 20 in tur bans and long gallabiyas stood on wrecked enemy tanks that marked the farthest Israeli penetration into Suez. They waved Egyptian flags, along with olive and palm branches, and chanted: "Welcome to Suez. Salute the heroes who destroyed 32 Israeli tanks." An old man, a cage of pigeons at his feet and a cup of tea in his hand, flashed a toothless grin and chanted "Allahu Akbar" (God is the greatest).

Curious Booty. Two miles north of Port Taufiq, we crossed the canal on a barge to join the Third Army on the east bank. On a broad sandy plain, a curious collection had been assembled. To the rear, in a 100-yard semicircle, were arranged captured Israeli tanks, guns, missiles, shells and even the wreckage of a Phantom jet. In the center of the semicircle a white monument had been erected honoring the men who died during the Israeli siege of the army. In between booty and monument, officers and men representing all units of the Third Army were drawn up.

Somehow they did not look like survivors of a three-month siege. They appeared well fed. They stood smartly to attention, with uniforms incredibly clean and boots new and polished. Major General Ahmed Badawy, the tough Third Army commander, said: "We had enough ammunition to go on fighting indefinitely, and we were getting supplies regularly. I am not going to tell you how we were getting our military supplies, but we were getting them."

Next day nine Egyptian Cabinet ministers arrived on a morale-building mission. They wandered among Third Army soldiers at random, embracing and kissing them and introducing themselves ("I am Ahmed Hilal, Minister of Petroleum Affairs"). The troops swarmed around them, eager to tell stories. One soldier with an RPG (Rocket Propelled Grenade) antitank missile launcher slung over his shoulder almost wept when he met Mashhour Ahmed Mashhour, chairman of the Suez Canal Authority.

We drove on to 'Uyun Musa, a lonely spot on the Gulf of Suez where Moses was supposed to have found water by striking a rock; now it was the site of the last fully intact fortification of the Israeli Bar-Lev Line. The 400 Egyptian troops manning it gave their visitors a rousing welcome. Standing on the ruined Israeli guns, they clapped hands, beat leather drums, danced and sang. "We destroyed their fortifications," one improvised song boasted. "The Israelis fled 'Uyun Musa. We destroyed them."

It was two days after the Israeli withdrawal before the first civilian refugees tearfully returned to Suez. The city is 80% destroyed, and it will take an estimated six years and $500 million to rebuild it. The first priority, according to Reconstruction Minister Osman Ahmed Osman, is to make it habitable for workers who will reopen the canal. Standing in the ruins, Osman said that the canal work will begin on March 5, the day that the Israelis are scheduled to complete their withdrawal into Sinai.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.