Israel was reported here today to have captured, during the June war, Arab intelligence reports giving the names of possible trouble makers who are counted upon by Jordan to set up resistance or possible overt actions by Arab refugees who would return to the west bank of the Jordan River. Under the new Cabinet decision, adopted yesterday, for continuance of the policy of readmitting to the west bank those Arabs who had fled to the Jordanian east bank, Israel will screen the would-be returnees to keep out those potential trouble makers.
The Cabinet decision to continue the readmission policy, but under strict screening procedures, was adopted by the Government yesterday after a lengthy meeting in which some of the Ministers insisted that the readmission policy be reversed. They based their position on the increased and open calls by Jordan for resistance by the returnees. The Cabinet’s new decision also made it clear that August 31 would be the deadline for the return of the refugees.
Israeli authorities have estimated that about 150,000 refugees plan to return from the east bank to the west bank. The Jordanians have claimed that the number is 250,000. Reports from Arab sources today indicated that thousands of the refugees are now gathered in camps at or near the east bank, filing their applications for return westward. The Jordanian Government has opened 100 registration centers. 10 of these in refugee camps, the others in Jordanian towns, to help the applicants. The flow of refugees is expected to begin in about 10 days.
(A dispatch from Amman, Jordan’s capital, reported today that King Hussein told Iraqi troops in Jordan that the war with Israel “is not over.” and that the June war had been “only a battle.” The monarch was reported to have visited one of the encampments still being retained in Jordan by Iraq’s 15,000 troops in that country, in the company of Iraqi President Abdel-Rahman Arif. He called for Arab unity “so as to enter the battle against Israel with one hand and one heart.”)
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