EVE OF BATTLE FOR JERUSALEM

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22622, 27 April 1948, Page 5

EVE OF BATTLE FOR JERUSALEM

ARAB AND JEWISH ARMIES POISED AWAITING BRITISH TROOPS’ MOVE IRGUN RESUMES ASSAULT ON JAFFA (N.Z.P.A. —Reuter—Copyright. 1 (10.30 a.m.) LONDON, April 26 A major battle for Jerusalem is shaping, with the Jews and Arabs both mobilising on the Holy City’s southern edges for the zero hour at sundown today, when the last British troops evacuate Alamein camp, which lies astride the Jerusalem-Bethlehem road.

OPPOSING FORCES 400 YARDS APART

Agency correspondents report that the Jewish and Arab forces late today were poised around the camp awaiting the troops’ departure. Armoured cars and infantry of King Abdullah’s Arab Legion were in sandbagged positions with machine-guns trained on the camp gate 200yds away. Two hundred yards in the other direction Haganah detachments were visible amidst a line of pine trees overlooking the camp. Many of them were dug in Despite repeated Haganah requests not to do so, the terrorist group, Irgun Zvai Leumi, resumed the offensive against Jaffa this morning, using mortars and small arms. The Arabs replied with counter mortar fire which hit the outskirts of Tel Aviv. Bullets smacked into buildings along Tel Aviv’s main street, Allenby road, sending shoppers scurrying to shelter. The Associated Press correspondent in Haifa says that 140 Arab prisoners escaped from Acre prison during a Jewish mortar bombardment of Acre whose population was swollen overnight by Arab refugees from Haifa. The Jewish bombardment, in which schooners offshore joined, continued for five hours, but only two buildings in the city are reported to have been damaged and five people wounded. British army artillery checked the Jewish fire The Irgun Zvai Leumi’s attack on Jaffa is by far the biggest display of force the terrorists have yet given, says the Daily Telegraph’s correspondent from the Jaffa-Tel Aviv border. The battle for Jaffa continued on Sunday night. The attackers, after early initial gains, struck pockets of stiff resistance. Many thousand excellently equipped troops appear to be engaged. •s Efforts on Sunday morning to arrange a truce failed. The Irgun is reported

to have demanded that the Arabs should surrender their arms and that Iraqi troops stationed in Jaffa should be withdrawn. A conference between King Abdullah of Transjordan and other Arab leaders discussed the possibility of intervention in Palestine of regular Arab States forces in view of the inability of the Arab Liberation Army and the Palestine Arabs to meet the Jewish threat. The Times’ correspondent at Jerusalem pointed out that the attack on Jaffa coincided with the second meeting of three consuls appointed to the truce commission which is to report to the United Nations. The consuls have been advised that they may travel anywhere, but they are hardly able to go anywhere or find anyone. They can formally make contact with the Jewish Agency staff at Jerusalem but not its leaders who are in Tel Aviv, and the consuls may vainly look in Palestine for an Arab who is prepared to speak without reference to an outside country. Jewish Agency sources described the Irgun Zvai Leumi’s single-handed attack on Jaffa as “undisciplined and irresponsible.” The agency assumed that the Irgun was anxious to win a spectacular singlehanded victory to offset the Haganah’s capture on April 22 of Haifa. An Irgun communique claims that hundreds of Arabs were injured in the attack on Jaffa. The Haganah radio described the Irgun's claims to have penetrated Jaffa as “fictitious.” The spokesman for British Overseas Airways Corporation stated that the corporation’s service leaving London tomorrow for Lydda would be the last scheduled service until further notice because “of operational difficulties at Lydda.” ‘ The London office of the Royal Dutch Airlines (K.L.M.) tonight received a radio message to stop all its passenger traffic from London to Palestine because of "the very dangerous” situation that had arisen.