The three Israelis who were imprisoned by the Iraqi authorities for months when the plane on which they were travelling was forced down at Baghdad have been released and are already in Teheran, Iran, it was announced here today.
A Foreign Office spokesman expressed the Israel Government’s thanks to United Nations Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold and to various states which intervened with Iraq, at Israel’s behest, to secure the release of the three Israelis, an elderly couple and a young woman.
It is understood that the Israel authorities promised Sec. Hammarskjold that if seven Iraqi soldiers who Iraq claims have disappeared in Israel since 1948 when the Arabs invaded the country are found, the Israelis will turn them over to the Iraqi authorities. It is also understood that Israel will in the future, as in the past, release any foreign Arab who through circumstances beyond his control finds himself in Israel illegally.
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