U.S. Expects Other Lands to Send Ships to Elath Through Akaba

Official circles here today indicated that they expect other countries to send ships to Israel through the Gulf of Akaba in order to strengthen Israel’s claim for free passage of Israeli shipping to and from Elath.

It was learned here today that the sending of the American oil tanker Kern Hills through the Gulf of Akaba to Elath was done with the permission of the State Department. Samuel H. Wang, operator of the Fairfield Steamship Company, said that the tanker was sailing as an American flag ship with an American union crew. She made the trip through the Gulf of Akaba, he said, under recent permission given to all American ships to use that waterway.

It is thought here that Egypt will not be in a position to obstruct the passage of ships to and from Israel through the Gulf of Akaba as long as United Nations forces are in the Sharm el Sheikh area which was the point at which Egypt enforced its blockade of Israeli shipping. The real test, officials here declared, will come when the United Nations forces are withdrawn from that area.

(A report from Cairo to the New York Herald Tribune today said that the United States came under attack yesterday in the Egyptian press when it was disclosed that an American tanker carried oil through the Gulf of Akaba to Israel. The cable said that the Arabs are troubled by the possibility that an expanded oil traffic through Elath could offer an alternative to the Suez Canal.)

The Jordan Government has blacklisted seven British and two American firms on the grounds they had dealings with Israel, it was reported here today. The report said the companies will be boycotted in Jordan until they announce they have stopped doing business with Israel. The American firms were identified as the Dayton Rubber Co., Dayton, Ohio, and the International Latex Corp.