Jordan authorities have arrested 500 Arab refugees and seised secret arms caches to prevent new terrorist raids against Israel, Beirut dispatches reported here today. Jordan was said to fear Israeli reprisals and possible political upheaval.
There was no confirmation of the reports which said that those arrested in Jordan were members of the Communist Party and the Palestine Liberation Organization. The Beirut dispatches said Jordanian Government censors prevented news agencies from reporting the arrests from Amman. One report said those arrested were engaged in secret commando training for new terrorist raids into Israel.
(In Israel, today, officials blamed El Fatah terrorists for an explosion which caused only minor damage last night to a water pumping station at a settlement not far from the Jordanian border, south of the Dead Sea. Israel complained to the United Nations Israel-Jordan Mixed Armistice Commission. It was the first El Fatah action in three months. The officials said that the saboteurs crossed over from Jordan to plant the explosives in the pumping station of the Ein Yehav settlement. Tracks of two persons leading to the Jordanian border were found by the Israelis.)
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