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Israel to Return Austrian Hospital in Old City to Austrian Government

December 18, 1968
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The Austrian Hospital on the Via Dolorosa in East Jerusalem will be returned shortly to Austria from which it was seized by the British authorities during World War II as enemy property, a Government spokesman announced today. The building was used as a Jordanian government hospital prior to the June. 1967 war. Israeli doctors who have been using it since then say it lacks modern facilities. Its beds and patients are expected to be transferred to the Hadassah Hospital on Mt. Scopus which is being restored.

Aerial photographs made before June, 1967 that show Jordanian troops and gun emplacements, are the basis for Israel’s claim to a plot of land on Mt. Scopus, the ownership of which is also claimed by the Lutheran World Federation. Israeli surveyors have mapped the site preliminary to building new headquarters for the military government of Judaea and Samaria. The Lutherans have protested and allege that the land served only as temporary barracks for Jordanian police but not the Jordan Army. Israeli sources said the photographs proved otherwise.

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