Tel Aviv - Around 15 Japanese tourists involuntarily spent the night in an Israeli settlement in the West Bank because they were unable to pronounce the letter "L", the Israeli daily Maariv reported Monday. The tour group were on an excursion originally set to take them to Afula in northern Israel.
But when they were buying tickets at the main bus station in Jerusalem, they pronounced the letter "L" like the letter "R", and were accidentally given tickets for the Ofra settlement in the northern West Bank.
When they arrived later that evening at the high-security entrance to the settlement, the puzzled guard tried to explain that there was no "nearby hotel" in the crisis-torn region.
The tourists then had to stay in the settlement, which is a radical stronghold in the Palestinian territories.
After long explanations and a day later, they eventually took a bus to their original destination.
