By YAAKOV KATZ
For the first time in over five years, the Civil Administration on Sunday conducted a tour of the Ashdod Port for close to 50 senior Palestinian merchants from the West Bank.
Civil Administration officials said that the tour was made possible due to the relatively clam security situation in the West Bank and the recent establishment of a Fatah-led Palestinian government without the Hamas terror group.
Lt.-Col. Doron Segal, head of the Civil Administration's Economic Division, said Sunday that the purpose of the tour was to expose the merchants to the port and to the possibility of using it to increase their import and export capabilities.