Bad Clash in Palestine

Manawatu Times, Volume 63, Issue 237, 7 October 1938, Page 5

Bad Clash in Palestine

Eighty Rebels Killed in Engagement With Troops IRAQ MINISTER PUTS FORWARD "SETTLEMENT PLAN United Press Association.—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright. Received Thursday, 9 p.m. LONDON, Oct. 6. The Jerusalem correspondent of the British United Press says it is reported that 80 rebels were killed, largely by the action of British war planes, in one of the biggest engagements throughout tho disturbances. British forces engaged the gang which is believed to have been responsible for the massacre at Tiberias on October 2. The encounter took place in the vicinity of the Sea of Galilee. British infantry rounded up the rebels and aircraft bombed and machine gunned them whenever they broke cover. A military patrol encountered an armed band on Mount Tabor and killed 12. Rebels burned*down a military grocery depot at Lydda and raided the District Office in Jerusalem and burned the Government file*. The Daily Telegraph says the Iraq Foreign Minister, Seyyld Tawfik Swaidi, has brought forward a plan for a Palestine settlement aiming at Jew-Arab cooperation in creating a British-control-led State similar to Iraq. The details include: (1) The administration to be gradually transferred from Britain to a Palestine independent State; (2) all Palestinians to be guaranteed political and civil rights regardless of race or , creed; (3) all communities to have equal rights; (4) full municipal powers to be granted to Arab and Jewish towns and villages; (5) the number of Jewish residents not to be increased; (6) legitimate British interests to be safeguarded; (7) Britain to guarantee all granted rights. MORE TROOPS DISPATCHED * LONDON, Oct. 5. The Secretary of State foj the Colonies, Mr. Malcolm Maconald, said there had been a serious deterioration in Palestine and that, as a result of this, the High Commissioner, Sir Harold Macmichael, was arriving in England on October 6 for consultation. Extra precautions included the dispatch from Britain of two cavalry battalions and one battalion of infantry; also, three battalions from India were due during tho next few weeks. Hundreds of ex-servicemen were augmenting the police. “BRITISH PRESTIGE AT LOWEST EBB'' PALESTINE IN STATE OF REVOLT Received Friday, 2 a.m. LONDON, Oct. 6. The seriousness of the situation in Palestine was disclosed by the Daily Mail’s Cairo correspondent on returning from areas under the most rigid Press censorship. He declares that Palestine is in a state of revolt and British prestige is at its lowest ebb. The whole countryside is almost completely in the hands of the rebels, whose own Courts give orders that no Arab dare disobey under penalty oi death. Scarcely any road is safe, and foreign nationals carry passports, which, if they are British, would become a ticket to heaven. The air base at Ramleh is a danger spot. The correspondent adds that it was actually the rebels who imposed the curfew at Haifa forbidding Arabs to go out after 7 p.m Anyone walking the streets after that time, be he British or Jew, was liable to attack. The Government was therefore forced to proclaim a curfew.