ATTACKS ON ARAB POSITIONS

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25444, 16 March 1948, Page 5

ATTACKS ON ARAB POSITIONS

Stem Gang Combines With Haganah • CLASHES CAUSE 60 DEATHS (N.Z. Press Association— Copyright) (Rec. 9 £.m.) LONDON, March 14. ‘‘The Haganah and the Stern Gang have combined in attacks on Arab positions and communications from Sated to Gaza,” says the Jerusalen> correspondent of the ‘‘Daily Telegraph.” ‘‘These attacks, combined with a flare-up in Jerusalem, brought to At least 60 the number known to have been killed in the last 24 hours. “Witnesses say that Stern Gang members who on Saturday night penetrated the Katamon quarter of Jerusalem to attack Arab positions masqueraded as a company of British soldiers. They marched in formation with a man posing as a sergeant-major giving army orders in English.” The Palestine police report that 14 armoured vehicles carrying Haganah men to the Jewish colony of Gath fought actions against Arabs in villages in the Gaza area. The convoy blew up ths town hall and 10 houses in the village of Faluja, where street fighting ensued. The convoy, on the return journey, forced its way past road-blocks while Arabs fired from rooftops and windows. The Haganah claims to have killed 15 Arabs. Seven Jews were killed and sik were wounded.

Jewish witnesses failed to identify three British police constables at an identity parade at Jerusalem police headquarters as being connected with the Ben Yehudi street bombihg on February 22. British police arrested the three constables in a missing armoured car during an Arab-Jewish clash on March 10. General Sir John Crocker, Corh-mander-in-Chief of the British Land Forces In the Middle East, conferred at the week-end with Commissioner in Palestine (General Sir Alan Cunningham). It is believed that they discussed plans for completing the British evacuation of Palestine before the. target date of August 1. It is thought that widespread fighting after the termination of the British mandate on May 15 may hamper the later stages of the evacuation unless it is hastened.