July
The “Forced” Operation begins, in which police and officials from the Labor Ministry enter moshavim (agricultural communities) looking for Palestinian workers who stayed overnight in Israel in violation of the general exit permit. The workers are sent back to the Occupied Territories, and the employers are fined. The operation stops with the outbreak of war in October.October 6
The Yom Kippur/October War breaks out between Israel and Syria and Egypt. During the war and for a short time afterward, Palestinian resistance grows. In response, Israel carries out large-scale arrests, blows up dozens of houses, and sets up dozens of checkpoints throughout the West Bank. During the war, Palestinians are not allowed to enter Israel.———
The Palestinian National Front (PNF) is founded as an arm of the PLO in the Occupied Territories, its purpose being to organize mass resistance to the occupation. Its activities include the encouragement of strikes and demonstrations by labor unions, student councils, and women’s organizations.
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In 1973, Israel imposes more stringent criteria for approval of requests for family unification between Palestinians in the diaspora and Palestinians living in the Occupied Territories, but the criteria are not made public. As a result, the number of approvals falls sharply. According to one estimate, between 1973 and 1983, only one thousand or so requests were approved each year, on average. In comparison, between 1967 and 1973, the Israeli authorities granted an average of seventy-five hundred approvals. In 1979, one hundred and fifty thousand requests for family unification remained pending.