Israel rejected categorically today charges made by Egypt in letters to United Nations Secretary General U Thant of persecution of the Arab refugees of the Gaza Strip as “unsubstantiated” and “not supported by the various documents quoted therein.”
The Israeli reply, signed by Ambassador Yosef Tekoah, head of the Israel mission, told the Secretary-General that “if a little of the energy spent by spokesmen of the UAR in disseminating defamatory statements and in fanning hatred, were devoted to promoting understanding and agreement, the prospects for the Middle East’s future would be brighter.”
The Israeli letter refuted two charges made by Egypt — that Israel had halted the export of citrus from Gaza and had barred Arab fishermen from their work. The letter described measures taken by Israel that have increased the volume of Gaza citrus exports and declared that the Arab fishing catch, under Israel rule, had increased 30% over what it was during the Egyptian occupation of the Strip. The letter also described health and welfare services and economic advantages introduced by Israel.
Ambassador Tekoah noted that because of the activities of saboteurs sent into the area from Egypt, measures had to be taken “to prevent the threats to the peace which they pose” and said this would be inevitable as long as Egypt pressed active belligerency and “persists in carrying out hostile acts against Israel.”
In a swing over to the offensive, the Israel document, which was circulated to all members of the Security Council and General Assembly declared that “there is also much that Egypt has to conceal about the treatment meted out to the Jews within her frontiers.” It said the “physical torture, atrocities and bestial perversities” to which Jews were subjected in Egyptian concentration camps “will remain forever a somber, shocking reminder of inhumanity toward the weak and innocent.”
The two chief items of “evidence” of Israel’s alleged maltreatment of Arabs in the Gaza Strip were reports by two British newspaper correspondents who apparently based their dispatches to The Guardian and the London Sunday Observer on the same trip to the Gaza area and interviews with the same persons.
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