The government owned Netivei Neft company which has been operating the Abu Rodeis oilfields in southwestern Sinai since 1967 is taking the first steps to dissolve itself in view of the imminent return of the oilfields to Egypt. According to reports from Geneva today, the Israeli and Egyptian working teams have agreed on details of the transfer and the first Egyptians are expected to arrive at Abu Rodeis by the end of next week.
Netivei Neft has already sent out dismissal notices to 150 of its 550 employes, many of whom are working in the company’s Tel Aviv office. According to some sources, the dismissed workers will receive severance pay at the rate of over three month’s wages for every year of employment.
Mordechai Peles, secretary of Netivei Neft, said, however, that oil is still being pumped at the normal rate “and will continue until we are told otherwise.” Meanwhile, crude oil presently in storage tanks at Abu Rodeis is being pumped aboard tankers for transfer to tank storages at Eilat. Two tankers are presently engaged in the transfer and two or more are expected to be sent to Abu Rodeis to hasten the process.
As the transfer of the oilfields to Egypt approaches, Israeli authorities have taken additional measures, to assure that it is an orderly one and to protect the facilities from possible sabotage attempts by zealots opposed to the Sinai accord. The Abu Rodeis and Ras Sudar areas on the eastern shores of the Gulf of Suez have been declared a closed military zone and entry is permitted only by special authority. About 200 battle hardened Israeli border policemen were sent to the area last week to guard against sabotage.
CLARIFICATION ON RABIN’S KUNEITRA REMARK
Meanwhile, the Prime Minister’s Office issued a “clarification” of Premier Yitzhak Rabin’s recent remark on a television interview that “I do not want another Kuneitra” when Israel withdraws from Abu Rodeis. Some press accounts abroad had interpreted that remark as a “tacit admission” of Syrian charges that Israeli forces destroyed Kuneitra before they evacuated the Golan Heights town following the 1974 disengagement agreement with Syria.
According to the Prime Minister’s Office, the Premier made no such admission but merely wanted to assure an orderly withdrawal from the oilfields so as not to give the Egyptians any pretext for similar accusations.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
