Israel Resumes Admission of Some Arabs to the West Bank

Send this clipping to somebody

Transcribed from the clipping

JERICHO, Israeli-occupied Jordan, Nov. 27—Israel readmitted a handful of prosperous Arabs to the west bank today as she inaugurated a new program for the reunion of families divided by the six-day war of June. Seven persons crossed the Allenby Bridge to the west bank area, while the usual daily flow of about 200 departing Arabs crossed in the opposite direction.

The eastbound traffic consists of impoverished refugees, mostly from the Gaza Strip. Barefoot, dressed in rags and clutching bundles of clothing and blankets, they provided a sharp contrast to the well-dressed Arabs returning to the west bank.

Under the new program for the reunion of divided families, Arabs in the occupied west band who have relatives on the east bank may apply to the Israeli authorities for permission to reunite their families.

Israel submits the applications to a rigid security check and weeds out men of military age, Palestinian refugees of 1948 and any residents the former Jordanian part of Jerusalem. About 300 applications have been received since the program was announced six weeks ago.

The Israeli authorities have approved 30 applications for return today, and neither they nor the Jordanian officials at the bridge could explain why only seven persons had appeared.

Those who did cross arrived at the bridge in taxis shortly after the appointed hour, 11 A.M. the first woman across the bridge was followed by porters carrying two pieces of matched plain luggage and 15 cardboard cartons. The cartons contained, among other things, 144 bars of soap, all but 12 of which were held by Israeli customs officials pending the payment of duties.

The other returning Arabs were well dressed and seemed comfortably off. They barely glanced at the shabby refugees crossing in the opposite direction. The eastbound refugees are required to sign forms in which they state that they are leaving of their own free will and that they will not return to the west bank without the express permission of the Israeli Government.

One Arab father with his veiled wife and four children said that his reasons for leaving were principally economic. “There is nothing for me in Gaza any more,” he said. “I can’t find any work and the prices are going up every day. Even if I work on the roads, the Israelis only pay me £5 ($1.45) for a day.

If I go across, I will have a better chance. If not in Amman, then perhaps in Kuwait or Jidda.”

How this transcription was made

Read from the scan at 1.6x to 10x by a machine looking at the image of the page, not by OCR and not by a person. Date confirmed from the page: the folio prints 'THE NEW YORK TIMES, TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 1967' in full, and 28 November 1967 was a Tuesday. Three printed errors are kept as set and were each re-read at 5x or more to confirm they are the paper's setting and not scan loss: 'the occupied west band', 'any residents the former Jordanian part of Jerusalem', and the lowercase sentence start at '11 A.M. the first woman'. The Gaza refugee quoted at length is given no name.

Cite this clipping

"Israel Resumes Admission of Some Arabs to the West Bank," The New York Times, 28 November 1967. Covering Palestine archive, CP-1967-047. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-1967-047