PLAN TO PROTECT HOLY PLACES

Greymouth Evening Star, 7 June 1948, Page 6

PLAN TO PROTECT HOLY PLACES

“The Franciscan Order- delivered Notes to embassies in Rome yesterday announcing that it intended to raise a militia of Christian volunteers to guard .Palestine’s holy places,” says the Rome correspondent of the New York Herald-Tribune. “The Franciscans said that the 408 brothers of their order at present in Palestine could no longer guarantee the security of the holy places and needed between 500 and 1000 armed men of all nationalities to assist them.” Two officials of the Latin Patriarchate in the Holy City and Franciscan fathers discussed the situation in Jerusalem with King Abdullah today. Telegram to Vatican The heads of the Catholic communities in Jerusalem have released the text of a telegram they sent to the Vatican protesting against Jewish activities in the Holy City. . The telegram said that protests to the Consular Truce Commission and to representatives of the international Red Cross had failed to yield results. The telegram was submitted for “the Holy See’s information and consideration.” The telegram added:” “The Arab forces have kept their promise to respect holy places, convents, and Red

Cross institutions. If they occupied a certain convent it was only to project the Holy City against Jewish attackers trying to penetrate and spread death and destruction.” The British United Press says that Jewish forces ■ attacked Old Jerusalem -before dawn yesterday. Arab legion officers said that legion troops repulsed the attack with heavy losses to the Jews. Two Jewesses Killed

Two London-born Jewesses were killed in front-line fighting with the Army of Israel during the battle of Jerusalem. They were 23-ycar-old Esther Calingold, daughter of a London publisher of Jewish books, and Silvia Beyrack, formerly secretary of the Zionist Youth Movement in London. , Red Cross officials arranged for the Jews to send another batch of noncombatant Arab prisoners into the Arab-held Old City, but instead ol the expected 500 women and children, only 38 persons walked through the wreckage of blasted churches and other buildings. The Arab Red Cross representative claimed that the Jews were releasing non-combatant prisoners “in driblets” to gain time by numerous cease-fires. Food stocks in Jewish Jerusalem were said on Friday to be running low. It was then 45 days since the last supply convoy reached the city.