The New York Times · New York, New York · 25 March 1968

CP-1968-013

Jordanian Residents Fleeing Area of Israeli Raid

77,000 Refugees Reported to Have Abandoned Camps —Farmers Leave Fields

By Thomas F. Brady

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Transcribed from the clipping

AMMAN, Jordan, March 24—The eastern side of the Jordan Valley, across the river from Israeli guns and patrols, is becoming a no man’s land. A wave of departures has followed strikes aimed, according to Israeli statements, against the fedayeen, or commandos, resisting Israeli occupation of the west bank.

According to figures of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, 77,000 Arabs have left the valley to move east toward Amman since Feb. 15, when Israeli pilots bombed areas and camps where they thought the fedayeen were based.

Now, in the wake of the Israeli ground attack last Thursday, even farmers and villagers who have lived in the valley and tilled the soil there for years are moving eastward. Tractors pulling trailers filled with household goods have been crawling up the roads out of the valley for three days, since Israeli tanks and paratroops crossed the river.

Jordanian officials hope the farmers will go back by day to till their fields and gather the harvest, but no one expects them to go on living in the valley. From the Dead Sea north to the great archeological site of Deir Alla, the valley is almost empty. North of Deir Alla, villages are already down to half their population.

Fedayeen — literally “those who sacrifice themselves” — are in the old refugee camp at Karameh, armed and hardly amiable men to the Jordanian authorities. But in eight other valley camps, where there were 77,000 Arab refugees Feb. 15, there are now fewer than 100, according to the United Nations figures.

The dusty ghost camps visible from the road are scarred by war and almost lifeless. Meanwhile, camps on the Jordan plateau teem with new inhabitants. The camp population to the east has jumped since Feb. 15 from 71,000 to 161,000, a total that includes Arabs displaced by the June war with Israel as well as refugees from the 1948 displacement when Israel was established.

Six new refugee camps, with a population of 63,000, have been organized by the United Nations agency on the plateau since Feb. 15, and four old plateau camps have grown by 27,000 people.

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