← Covering Palestine

Newsday · 17 June 1967

CP-1967-024

Jordan Refugees Put at 200,000

United Press International, Allenby Bridge, Jordan

Jordan Refugees Put at 200,000 — Newsday, 17 June 1967
Newsday · 17 June 1967

Transcribed from the clipping

“Allenby Bridge, Jordan (UPI)—The number of Palestinian refugees who have fled from Israeli-captured western Jordan since last week’s fighting is now believed to be about 200,000, preliminary results of the first head count showed yesterday. The final figure was to be announced today. It is substantially higher than the 150,000 estimate issued earlier by the Jordanian government and the 100,000 estimate compiled by UN Relief and Works Agency. The count began early yesterday as dozens of teams organized by the government and UNRWA moved into towns, villages and refugee camps eastward from the Jordan River which now forms the Jordan-Israel truce line… In this neighboring Arab nation, new refugees were seen crossing the Jordan River by the hundreds yesterday at the wrecked Allenby Bridge, made passable with wooden boards across the collapsed center part. Men and women carrying babies, small children and bundles of clothing and blankets scrambled down the steep concrete bed of the shattered bridge. They were met by crowds of anxious relatives. Israeli soldiers on the west bank made no attempt to halt fleeing refugees, but watched carefully to stop any trying to come in their direction. Israeli authorities were making it easy for refugees to leave by busing them to the bridge. The first attempt to bring injured Jordanian prisoners of war from the Israeli-captured west bank failed yesterday. Israel cancelled the plan without explanation.”

Photograph caption

“JORDAN CROSSING. Young and old Arab refugees from the Israeli occupation of the Jordan River’s west bank are helped across the Allenby Bridge at Jericho yesterday by Israeli troops. A little Arab girl, left, is carried across the Jordan by a soldier, while other soldiers guide an aged man, right, along the damaged bridge toward unoccupied territory.” AP Wirephotos.

Context added by this archive

Two hundred thousand, counted, twelve days after the war. The mechanism is in one sentence: the soldiers made no attempt to halt the refugees leaving, watched carefully to stop anyone coming the other way, and the authorities were busing people to the bridge. The photographs are captioned as help, and the caption uses the words Israeli occupation and unoccupied territory.

Cite this item

"Jordan Refugees Put at 200,000," Newsday, 17 June 1967. Covering Palestine archive, CP-1967-024. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-1967-024

Elsewhere in the archive

This record is part of Covering Palestine, an archive of American and Anglophone newspaper clippings about Palestinians, 1812 to 2022. Researched and assembled by Maria Robles.

The clipping belongs to the newspaper that printed it, or to the wire service that supplied the copy. It is reproduced here for research, criticism and commentary.

Something wrong here, or something you know about this clipping? The archive is still being built and corrections are wanted: maria@rozumstudio.com, quoting CP-1967-024.

See it in the archive reel · Full text of every clipping · Dataset