Members of the mixed Israel-Syrian armistice commission met at Rosh Pinah today and conducted negotiations for several hours without achieving any positive results.
Arab infiltration attempts in the “triangle” area of Central Palestine have been steadily increasing, it was reported here today. Last night a band of Arabs from the Transjordan-held sector crossed the frontlines and raided Kfar Eliashiv, wounding one farmer and stealing three cows.
The harvesting of some 60,000 dunams (13,200 acres) of Arab-owned olive groves, grain fields, and tobacco plantations in Western Galilee and south of Haifa, has just been completed under the direction of Israel’s Custodian of Abandoned Properties.
These “enemy” agricultural properties, abandoned by Arabs in their mass flight last year during the Palestine war, were placed by the Government under the jurisdiction of the special branch and with the help of a number of agricultural experts, the crops were cultivated and harvested.
The major crop of the abandoned properties in this area was olives. Although roughly 20 per cent of the groves were found to be unproductive, the remaining 80 per cent produced more than 2,000 tons of olives. Of these, 400 went to the Israel Army, and from the rest 310 tons of olive oil was extracted and sold for nearly $400,000. It cost the Custodian, however, $135,000 to take care of the trees and to pick the olives on an area of 18,000 dunams.
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