Hi again
Thank-you for another Palestinian question - I welcome the opportunity
to keep on learning more about the experiences of the refugees.
The 1967 Arab-Israeli War displaced most of the refugees (around
40,000) in the two Jericho camps nearest the border with Jordan:
Aqabat Jabr and Ein Sultan. Palestinians in other West Bank Camps
further from the Jordanian border were not affected in the same way,
although tens of thousands of them also headed towards Jordan.
Some people wanted to return to the camp shelters which had been their
homes for nearly twenty years but there were many obstacles to this
and in some cases great danger. Other families had a breadwinner
already on the East Bank and could adjust more easily to the changed
situation.
The map on this page shows how near to the border Aqabat Jabr and Ein
Sultan are:
http://www.un.org/unrwa/refugees/westbank.html
When you read the excerpts below and follow the links for more detail,
you'll soon realise that there are different angles on this story,
according to who's telling it.
Israeli government:
"The first wave of displaced persons came during the fighting.
According to Gazit, about 70,000 civilian residents of the West Bank
headed for the East Bank with the retreating Jordanian forces; most
lived in the refugee camps near Jericho.
The second wave began with the agreement reached between the Jordanian
governor of Jerusalem, Anwar al-Khatib, and Major-General Chaim Herzog
who was the military commander of the West Bank. Al-Khatib approached
Herzog in the name of the residents, explaining that tens of thousands
of families were divided in the wake of the war. Fathers of families,
tens of thousands of men from the West Bank, worked regularly on the
East Bank and were forced to remain there when fighting erupted. Their
wives and children, Al-Khatib explained, were left in the territories
without any source of sustenance. On 11 June, tens of thousands of
refugees began heading for Jordan of their own volition. Buses
collected them near the Damascus Gate in Jerusalem after they had
given the Israeli authorities a signed declaration that they were
leaving of their own free will, and that they were not being deported.
The immigration wave, however, created heavy Jordanian
counter-pressure to return the refugees to their homeland. On 2 July,
only three weeks after the fighting had subsided, the Israeli
government decided to permit West Bank residents to return to their
homes within the framework of "Operation Refugee." A format for
submitting a request to return (via the International Red Cross) was
developed and a final date for the submission of applications was set,
although the Government later authorized a number of extensions. The
Jordanians submitted 120,000 applications. Israel approved the return
of 21,000 residents, 17,000 of whom actually returned."
http://www.israel-mfa.gov.il/mfa/go.asp?MFAH087k0
==========
Washington Report on Middle East Affairs:
"The high-ranking UN official could hardly believe his eyes. At least
35,000 Palestinian residents of the huge West Bank refugee camps of
Aqabat Jabr and Ein Sultan near Jericho were missing. As he drove by
the just-destroyed camps, he could see only a handful of people
picking through the rubble.
Dr. Laurence Michelmore, the American Commissioner General of the
United Nations Relief Works Agency (UNRWA), knew that refugees had
poured from the West Bank into Jordan after the outbreak of the
Arab-Israeli war on June 5, 1967. Still, it was bewildering only a
week later, on June 12, to see the normally bustling camps silent and
empty in the hot Jericho sun.
[...]
It began as soon as Israeli forces reached the Jordan Valley in June
1967. Israeli bulldozers immediately began destroying the camps there.
Remaining residents had to flee to avoid being buried in the rubble of
their homes. Israeli planes thundered over them at low level,
contributing to their panic.
As Israeli loudspeakers boomed, "Go to King Hussein," hundreds of
trucks lined up to transport the terror-stricken refugees to the
Jordan River's shattered bridges."
from: Israeli Terror Tactics Drive Out Palestinians in 1948 and 1967
By Andrew I. Killgore
http://www.washington-report.org/backissues/0390/9003017.htm
==========
A Lebanese site:
" many Palestinians from the West Bank established relations with the
East Bank during the 1950s and 1960s. They went there to study or
work, and had therefore already established a home when the 1967 War
made it impossible for them to return to their families on the other
side of the Jordan river."
http://almashriq.hiof.no/general/300/320/327/fafo/reports/FAFO177/2_4.html
==========
Two writers on the Jewish Voice for Peace website:
"But by far the biggest expulsion in that war took place in
Aqabat-Jabr and the other giant camps of the 1948 refugees near
Jericho, the largest in the Middle East. They were completely emptied,
to the last man and woman, and all the inhabitants expelled to nearby
Jordan. In those camps were at least a hundred thousand refugees. When
I visited them immediately after the war, they were ghost towns.
After the war, some of these refugees tried to sneak back by crossing
the Jordan river by night. One day a soldier came to my office in an
obvious state of shock and told me that all these refugees, when
caught, were shot on the spot."
Uri Avnery
"I was personally involved in this operation. Right after the '67 war
I was assigned to serve as a squad commander in an IDF boot camp (Camp
80). One week my entire company was sent to the Jericho area for what
was described to us as an operation against Palestinian terrorist
infiltrators ("mechablim") from Jordan. Although I did not quite
understand why I was to take new and inexperienced IDF recruits to
fight infiltrators, I followed the orders. I was told to lead my men
to a pre-specified location and set out an ambush ("ma'arav") at
night. If we were to detect any unidentified forces, we were to wait
until they got very close to us and then we were to open fire with
everything we got, attempting to kill them all. This was a standard
procedure, practiced many times during training.
I did lead my men to our pre-assigned location. We did lay in wait for
infiltrators. Unidentified "forces" did arrive, and being the good
soldier that I was, I waited until they were very close. As I was
about to open fire, I heard a baby cry.
To make a long story short, it was a Palestinian family trying to
sneak back to their home. The good news was that none of them was
killed. The bad news was that they were promptly deported back to
Jordan after I brought them to headquarters (I had no idea what to do
with them). I know for a fact that other Palestinian families were not
as lucky. I know for a fact that many were unintentionally killed by
soldiers like me. I also believe that some were killed intentionally,
as Avnery reports." AK
http://www.hlt-palestine.org/news/essay_03-18.html
==========
The Palestinian and Refugee Centre site has some excellent pictures:
"Continuing Exodus: 1968
They have just arrived in east Jordan, crossing the temporary bridge,
near to the newly destroyed Allenby Bridge, from the Israeli-Occupied
West Bank.
Despite military action in the Jordan valley, there was a continuing
exodus of Palestinians, from the West Bank and Gaza Strip, that
numbered between two and four thousand a month from the autumn of 1967
until the early summer of 1968.
[...]
Arab Refugees Return to West Bank of the Jordan: August 1967
In July 1967, Israel announced plans for the return of displaced Arabs
to the West Bank. Half to three quarters of the 200,000 Arabs who fled
to east Jordan following hostilities in June 1967 applied to return.
By 1972, 40,000 Arabs were allowed back to the West Bank; but, only
3,000 of this number were UNRWA-registered refugees."
http://www.shaml.org/album/more.htm
==========
BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights:
"Under an agreement concluded between Jordan and Israel in August
1967, a process was established to facilitate the orderly return of
the 1967 refugees. Arbitrary conditions and restrictive time
constraints imposed by Israel, however, limited the number of refugees
able to participate in the repatriation scheme and infringed on the
voluntary character of return. According Red Cross (ICRC) figures,
Israel approved only 13 percent of the repatriation applications
allowing only 20,000 of 140,000 refugee applicants to return. Refugees
displaced in 1948 and again in 1967 were not permitted to go back to
the occupied territories. Israel rejected appeals by the ICRC to
extend the time limit to enable the return of all those refugees
wishing to do so."
http://www.badil.org/Press/2002/press261-02.htm
====================================================
UNRWA gives 1967 figures for these two camps, but not for others:
AQABAT JABR REFUGEE CAMP
"Prior to the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, the number of registered refugees
totalled some 30,000. During and after the hostilities in 1967 most
refugees fled the camp and crossed the Jordan River.
[...]
Today, Aqabat Jabr has a small population of only 4,637 registered
refugees."
http://www.un.org/unrwa/refugees/westbank/aqabatjabr.html
EIN SULTAN REFUGEE CAMP
"Just before the 1967 Arab-Israeli conflict, the camp had accommodated
some 20,000 refugees. During the hostilities most of the refugees fled
to Jordan.
[...]
Number of Registered Refugee Population 1562"
http://www.un.org/unrwa/refugees/westbank/einsultan.html
There are links to 2 pictures of Aqabat Jabr and 1 of Ein Sultan here:
http://www.ntcsites.com/palestine/palestiniantowns/
As you know, you are very welcome to ask if you would like me to
clarify anything or help with a broken link.
Hope the writing's going well!
Best Wishes - Leli
Searches:
1967 refugees "from the west bank" camp OR camps
"ein sultan" OR "ein * sultan" OR "ayn * sultan" 1967
aqabat jabr 1967 |
