The first action implementing the Lebanese-Israeli armistice pact signed yesterday took place on the Lebanon-Israel frontier this morning when 36 Lebanese prisoners of war were exchanged for seven captured Israeli soldiers, it was announced here. Relatives of the prisoners joined them at a Jewish settlement near the border and all attended a reception to celebrate their release.
The joint armistice commission set up to administer the treaty began meeting today in En Naqura, several miles north of Ras el Naqura, on the Lebanese coast. The first session was chaired by Gen. William E. Riley, U.N. mediator Ralph. J. Bunche’s chief military aids, but it is expected that he will immediately appoint another U.N. officer to replace him as permanent chairman of the commission.
Meanwhile, in the Negev area, plans made by the joint Israeli-Egyptian armistice commission to transfer some 400 Arab civilians who remained in the Faluja area to Hebron, where they elected to go, were disrupted at the last minute by a Transjordan decision not to permit the entrance of the Arab civilians into their area.
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