k i F LYING VISIT to Israel. I spent one l eight at Nahal Oz,
a the bbutz on the Gaza strip. The land of the kibbutz runs along fr ontier, and its buildings ate only 600 yards away from it. afore only two years ago, Nahal Oz has a long way to go 'fore it attains the bourgeois splendour and comfort of kikg,ania or Afiquim or any of the other long-established n "utzim. At the moment, though a great deal has been done, s-o_nditions are spartan. After an exceedingly uncomfortable (1`1)Ight I slunk to the wash house at about 7.45—under the eyes girls who had been digging and hoeing since 6 o'clock— \v` ing More than usually effete. Everybody in the kibbutz ii,?rks extremely hard all day, and at night the men guard the rvodlit barbed wire which surrounds the buildings. The mem- ers of Nahal Oz are of course an elite group. Only rather which people would choose to lead such a life—a life 4wbieh naturally makes them less tolerant of Britain's perennial b111,3easement of the Arabs than other Israelis manage to be, ,even they are very far from being bellicose, in spite of the 1,,a,1,11 they live under. It was driven home to me the day after th_"t. One of them, seeing Arabs from Egypt reaping some of hocinkibbutz's corn, rode up to shoo them away. Covered by t° Egyptian him soldiers, they dragged him from his horse and lune', Hun across the frontier. His body was returned after He had been shot at close range, his eyes had been gouged gi and his body had been otherwise mutilated. * * *
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