The New York Times · 22 June 1969

CP-1969-021

ISRAELIS SEIZING WEST-BANK AREA

Arabs Protest Security Step at Village Near Hebron

By JAMES FERON

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JERUSALEM, June 21 — The Israeli authorities have requisitioned 300 acres of Arab-owned land near Kfar Etzion, an Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank area, and have given about 100 people living there a week to leave.

The order, issued last Monday, has caused dismay in the Hebron region and confirmed some Arab fears that the Israelis are embarked on an expansion of the Etzion settlement or on building a new one. The mayor of Hebron, Sheik Mohammed Ali Jaabari, said he had sent a message to Mrs. Golda Meir, the Israeli Premier, begging her to rescind the order.

Arab notables met with military government authorities seeking its cancellation, but the response was apparently negative. Some observers believe that the Israelis may use the land to establish a nahal, or paramilitary settlement, largely as protection for the Etzion settlers.

They have not been attacked, but a military source said that there has been an increasing number of sabotage and terrorist incidents in the northern Hebron region. He said the requisitioned land was needed for security. Government officials suggested that an army base would be established there but that it would not be a nahal.

Israeli and Arab sources agree that the land is Arab-owned. Sheik Jaabari said it had been in Arab hands for centuries. An Israeli source said that most of the houses belonged to residents of the nearby village of Irtech and that they had others in the village itself. He added that the Arab owners were being compensated.

Kfar Etzion was established shortly after the Israeli victory in the six-day 1967 war on one of the sites of four settlements overrun by Jordanian forces in the 1948 war. The settlements, known as the Etzion Bloc, were destroyed by the Jordanians, and many inhabitants were slaughtered.

In 1967 the Israeli Government came under strong pressure to permit settlers, including children of the original Etzion Bloc farmers, to return to the area. Bowing to strong pressure, the Government, under the late Premier Levi Eshkol, permitted the re-establishment of the Etzion name in the region.

The move caused furor in the Arab world, where fears of Israeli territorial expansion were seemingly confirmed. Israelis who opposed acquisition of territories taken in the six-day war also objected.

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