FORCE NEEDED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26672, 19 January 1948, Page 5

FORCE NEEDED

PALESTINE COMMISSION ONLY WAY OF UPHOLDING DECISIONS DISTURBANCES CONTINUE N.Z.P.A.—Copyright Rec. 11 p.m. LONDON, Jan. 17. Opinion is growing that the British should leave Palestine as soon as possible and the question being debated is whether, if the United Nations Commission decided that it cannot serve a useful purpose in Palestine without the backing of force, the British mandate might be transferred on paper to the commission in London or New York, says the Jerusalem correspondent of The Times. T'v» commission’s presence in Palestine, h® points ouv, would have on.y a brief and formal significance. A Jewish State already virtually exists, a partition has already largely come about through the wedge of fear and hostility between the Arabs.. Jew? and Arabs seem committed to force Only an independent and powerful force at the command of the commission could alter the intentions of the Arabs to make trouble and of the Jews to reply with more, trouble. The view is sorrowfully held, the correspondent adds, that the best that can be hoped for is to safeguard Jerusalem and that events elsewhere must take their course. Shootings and bombings by Jews and Arabs continued over a wide area, says the Jerusalem correspondent of the United Press. Arab bomb-throwers penetrated the British-Jewish perimeter of Old Jerusalem, blew up a food shop and killed one Jew. Arabs killed two Jews during attacks on Jewish traffic leaving the terrorised and virtually paralysed Haifa. Haganah claimed that its forces blew up two Arab houses on the Tel-Aviv-Jaffa border. Police reported that the Jews made a major attack on the Arab village of Surif, in the Judean hills and wounded six Arabs. Arabs ambushed the attackers returning to their operational base and wiped out about half of them. Arabs claim that 49 Jews were killed. II is officially announced that British troops and police found the bodies of 35 Jews and four Arabs near Surif. Reuter’s Haifa correspondent says that British artillery and machineguns turned back a large force of Syrian Arabs which entered Palestine, apparently to attack two isolated Jewish settlements in upper Galilee. Military sources

said that British troops now replaced the Trans Jordan Frontier Force, which has been manning the borders of the Lebanon, Syria and Palestine.

Arab sources report that Arab guerrillas ambushed two heavily armed ‘ Jewish punitive columns in the Heoror. hills and shot at least 40 Jews. Jewish sources say the columns are heading for two Jewish settlements, Kfar anc Zion. The first column, comprising 800 reinforcements from Jerusalem, reached the settlements 20 miles to the south.

Heavy Arab opposition forced back the second party of 200. Ariped Jews surrounded three Arab villages near Hebron, believed to be in retaliation for the Arab ambush near Surif. Arabs last night bombed a cafe in a Jerusalem street and injured three Jewish girls. An Haganah force of 400 uniformed men launched an attack on the Arab village dominating the Jezreel Valley approach to Haifa. The attack developed into a full-scale house-to-house battle. Jews blew up-five houses and set fire to transport sheds and a Detrol dump with Molotov cocktails. People fled for cover as automatic fire raked the streets and heavy explosions rocked a house near Mount Carmel. ‘ Haganah claimed to have killed 82 Arabs and destroyed 19 Arab-owned buses and an Arab bus depot in Haifa between dusk yesterday and dawn today. It is officially announced that seven Arab children aged between two and 12 and one Arab woman were killed when Haganah blew up the two houses in Haifa. Royal Engineers are digging for survivors.