Israel Vows Aid for Palestinian Gulf Refugees : Immigration: Officials at Jordan River crossing will ease restrictions on entering Israeli-controlled territory.

As Palestinian refugees from Kuwait and Iraq streamed westward across the Jordan River on Sunday, a senior Israeli government official promised to expedite the flow of those returning to the West Bank from the Persian Gulf crisis area.

Shmuel Goren, occupied territories coordinator, paid a visit to this historic crossing place between Jordan and the West Bank and declared that Israel would “obviously help” any foreign citizens wishing to pass this way.

He said that Israeli immigration authorities at the terminal of the stubby, ramshackle bridge over the almost-dry Jordan River near the entrance to the Dead Sea would ease restrictions on entering Israeli-controlled territory.

Goren said several nations had sounded out Israel about using the Allenby Bridge to relieve the jam at the international airport in Jordan’s capital of Amman and the airfield and port at Aqaba on the Red Sea.

But the official also said that Israel, during the impending harvest season, would crack down on any effort to truck West Bank food supplies across the Allenby Bridge into Jordan with Iraq as the ultimate intended destination.

During the 1980-88 Persian Gulf War between Iran and Iraq, West Bank growers sent much of their produce--mainly fruits and vegetables--across the river into Jordan where it was transshipped to then-landlocked Iraq.

Reports have circulated recently that farmers on the West Bank are continuing to ship food ostensibly to Jordan, but which is rerouted overland to Baghdad, Iraq’s capital.

Similarly, reports suggest that foodstuffs arriving in Christian ports in neighboring Lebanon are forwarded through Syria to Jordan, where they are transferred to Iraq-bound trucks.

Goren said Sunday that the Israeli government would investigate the final destination of food shipments and crack down, particularly during the major harvest season a few weeks from now.

“It is clear we won’t allow any exports to Iraq,” said Goren.

In his visit to the Allenby Bridge, Goren hoped to call attention to the plight of the Palestinians returning from Kuwait and Iraq, where hundreds of thousands have worked during the past two decades and sent much of their paychecks home.

The preponderant majority of Palestinians in the occupied territories and in Israel itself have supported Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait and are opposed to American troops defending Saudi Arabia.

Returning Palestinians told of the chaos in Kuwait, with Egyptian and Sudanese laborers sleeping in mosques.

A resident of Bethlehem said the situation in Kuwait was “very bad, very dangerous,” adding that food was scarce and expensive.