Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin arrived in Frankfurt, West Germany on Tuesday (8 July) at the start of a four-day official visit--the first by an Israeli head of government, although diplomatic relations have been established for a decade.

Mr Rabin immediately flew on north to Hanover and then by helicopter to the nearby site of the Nazi death camp at Belsen where thousands died during World War 11.

The death of six million Jews--more than 20,000 of them at Belsen--at the hands of the Nazis had previously been a barrier to an official visit to Germany by an Israeli Premier. Mr Rabin said he was undertaking the visit with mixed feelings but he saw the need to build bridges for the future.

During his emotional pilgrimage to the wartime scene of untold horror, Mr Rabin laid a wreath at a memorial commemorating the dead to underline his stated conviction that the suffering of the jews could not be forgotten.