ASHKELON, Israel (AP) -- Israel's latest secret immigrants made a
                  complex exodus from Cuba that involved at least three foreign countries and
                  help from the Jewish granddaughter of Emiliano Zapata, the legendary
                  Mexican revolutionary.

                  Israel confirmed Monday the 400 Cuban Jews were brought to Israel in the
                  past five years in a secret operation that had the blessing of Cuban leader
                  Fidel Castro.

                  Israel's military censor lifted a ban Monday on reporting on their arrival, and
                  the Jewish Agency, a quasi-governmental agency dealing with immigration,
                  allowed reporters limited access to the newcomers.

                  Cuban immigrants interviewed at a center in the southern coastal town of
                  Ashkelon said the operation was common knowledge in Cuba.

                  Everyone in Cuba "knew the Jews were coming to Israel," said Alexei Colon
                  Mizrachi, 23, who now lives at the center with his twin brother, Alexander,
                  and their father, Cristobal.

                  A spokesman for the small Jewish community in Cuba angrily denied any
                  secret operation, saying some Cuban Jews had left for Israel, but not in high
                  numbers and not as part of a secret pact.

                  "That is absolutely false," said Jose Miller, president of the Jewish
                  Community House of Cuba. "In Cuba, there is a general immigration
                  movement to many countries, but there has been no agreement to take
                  members of our Hebrew community to Israel."

                  An Israeli official said 1,300 Jews remain in Cuba. Of those, 200 have said
                  they are interested in coming to Israel and could be allowed out by June, the
                  official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

                  Monday's revelation allowed media to broadcast a host of previously
                  censored reports, including a 1996 Israel radio interview with Margarita
                  Zapata, Emilio Zapata's granddaughter and a revolutionary comrade of
                  Castro.

                  Two ex-Cubans who immigrated to Israel shortly after Castro's rise initiated
                  contact with Zapata when she toured Israel in the early 1990s as a guest of
                  the left-of-center Meretz party.

                  David Roth and Monica Pollack, members of Kibbutz Gazit, a
                  Meretz-affiliated communal farm, handed Zapata a list of Cuban Jews they
                  knew wanted to come to Israel.

                  Zapata, whose maternal grandmother was a Polish Jewish refugee, took the
                  list to Castro, with whom she had worked closely in the 1950s when he was
                  a guerrilla leader.

                  "The commander made the decision" to grant permission to those Jews who
                  wanted to leave, Zapata said in the 1996 interview.

                  The immigrants left Cuba with visas provided by countries sympathetic to
                  their desire to come to Israel -- France, Canada and Spain.

                  Zapata's intervention cleared the way for Roth to travel to Cuba and
                  organize the immigration, Roth said in the same 1996 interview.

                  Israel and Cuba do not have diplomatic ties, but Castro is known to want to
                  improve Cuba's image abroad and encourage Washington to consider lifting
                  the nearly 40-year-old economic embargo that has hurt Cuba's economy.

                  Castro's government "hoped it would melt the ice" with the United States,
                  Pollack told the radio.

                  The Cuban immigrants said they supported ending the embargo, which
                  keeps their families back home living in poverty.

                  "The economic situation is terrible," said Cristobal Colon Mizrahi.

                  The immigrants said they enjoyed life in the relaxed beach town that is their
                  temporary home, but longed for work so they could move away and support
                  themselves.

                  "My husband barely makes minimum wage at a textile factory," said Esther
                  Mechulam Peison, who said she was considering joining her brother in the
                  New York borough of Brooklyn.

                  Alexei Colon Mizrahi said he would never leave Israel, but would love to
                  return to Cuba for a visit.

                  "I miss baseball," he said. "And Fidel."