BATTLE FOR JERUSALEM

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25547, 15 July 1948, Page 5

BATTLE FOR JERUSALEM

Reuter’s correspondent in Amman says that Arab Legion artillery frustrated a Jewish attempt to run 30 lorries with weapons and supplies for Jerusalem through Bab el wad, on the main road west of Jerusalem.

Egyptian Army units, joining in the battle of Jerusalem, have fought their way into the Jewish-held suburbs of Katamon and Mekor Haim, along the southern fringe of the city. The Israeli commander in Jerusalem said that Israeli gunners had shelled Bethlehem. Christ’s birthplace, six miles south of Jerusalem, in reply to the Arab bombardment of the Jewish settlement of Ramat Rachel, on the Jerusalem-Bethlehem road. Jerusalem rocked for over an hour yesterday as Jewish artillery pounded the city and Arab Legion positions round it.

Reuter’s correspondent in Tel Aviv reports that Israeli forces have occupied Ras el Ain, two miles north of Petach Tikvah. Ras el Ain contains Jerusalem’s water pumping statidn.

The Iraqi troops who were driven from Ras el Ain left too hurriedly to damage the pumping machinery seriously. Jewish sources in Tel Aviv said that Jewish troops, in heavy fighting, had pushed Arab Legion troops out of Detarif and Beit Nabala, which legion troops reoccupied on July 17. An Israeli military spokesman in Tel Aviv claimed that scores of dead as well as guns and equipment were left on the field when Egyptian forces retreated before Jewish attacks ‘MI Negba and Julis, in the southern sector of Palestine. Tel Aviv and Haifa were bombed yesterday. Egyptian aeroplanes dropped bombs on the business centre of Tel Aviv. It was later officially stated that 14 persons were killed and 35 were wounded. Three low-flying bombers dropped seven bombs on Haifa, but, according to Reuter’s correspondent, there were no casualties and the damage was negligible.