At the Gate of Tears

To provide the oil that is vital to Israel's powerful military machine, a stream of tankers this year will carry more than 35 million tons from Persian Gulf fields up the Red Sea to the port of Eilat. The southern part of this supply line has never been really safe, however. That was demonstrated in 1971, when a small group of fedayeen armed with bazookas attacked the Israel-bound Liberian tanker Coral Sea as it passed through the ten-mile-wide strait of Bab el Mandeb (Gate of Tears). The attack prompted an audacious --and secret--Israeli countermove.

TIME has learned that Israel has sent elite commando units more than 1,200 miles beyond its borders to occupy several uninhabited islands within 85 miles of Bab el Mandeb. It has set up a radio and radar base on one of them, Zuqar, a 70-sq.-mi. waterless chunk of rock and sand in the Hanish group only 20 miles off the coast of Yemen. (Yemen claims sovereignty over Great Hanish, but the other ten islands in the group are officially unowned.) The Israeli commandos speak fluent Arabic, wear no uniforms and fly no flags. They are rotated every three months by naval units that put in under cover of night.

Despite the precautions, the base, which became fully operational eight months ago, is not quite so secret as the Israelis would like. The Yemenis said they had heard about it last summer from one Baruch Zaki Mizrachi, an alleged Israeli spy who confessed (probably under torture) that he had been assigned to thwart any land-based attack at Bab el Mandeb. Israel promptly denied it--and still does. Meanwhile, militarily powerless Yemen can do nothing about Israel's penetration except complain.

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