TROOPS MOVING

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26770, 13 May 1948, Page 7

TROOPS MOVING

EGYPT TO AID ARABS PLANS FOR PARTICIPATION OF SYRIA CEASE-FIRE PERIOD ENDS Rec. 7.50 p.m. LONDON, May 11.,, The Egyptian Senate unanimously adopted a motion put by the Prime Minister, Nokrashy Pasha, that the Egyptian Army “ shall, with the other Arab armies, enter Palestine at a suitable time to restore stability and prevent massacres in Palestine.” Egyptian Army sources said that two Egyptian infantry battalions were on their way to the Palestine border, bringing the Egyptian contingents there to 15,000 men. King Farouk told the British United Press correspondent that he would not tolerate the establishment of a Zionist State in the Middle East close to Egypt's borders. Egypt intended to extend all possible military, financial and economic help to her Arab brothers in Palestine. King Farouk emphasised that the Arabs would give proper minority rights to Jews living in an Arab State of Palestine. The Associated Press Damascus correspondent reports that the Arab War Council has ended a two-day secret meeting. A Syrian Government source said that the meeting completed the final draft of the Syrian-Lely.nese share in the Palestine invasion. The Associated Press correspondent in Jerusalem says that Arabs, under the command of the Iraqi colonel, Mahdi Bey, launched a counter-attack at Bab-el-Wad, along the Jerusalem-Tel-Aviv road, the scene of the Jewish success yesterday. The Haganah, which is to-day still working feverishly to clear the road-block at Bab-el-Wad, said that fighting, against the Arab attack was “progressing satisfactorily." A message from Jerusalem states that the cease-fire in the Holy City was broken at midnight, when the rattle of small-arms fire and mortar explosions awoke residents after four days of quiet. The Jews say that the Arabs started the firing. The Jews last night opened a heavy attack on the Arab town of Beisan.

The Jews have given the British military authorities an undertaking to renounce any possible plans to use Haifa as a naval base before the British complete evacuation at the end of July. The British military authori-' ties will be responsible until then for the security of all ships, passengers, and cargoes, and the deputy port manager, Mr M. C. Stebbens, emphasised that Haifa would continue to operate normally. A Geneva message says the International Red Cross announced that Jerusalem would be declared an open city on May 12 or May 13. The Prime Minister, Mr Attlee, in a message to the High Commissioner in Palestine, Lieutenant-general Sir Alan Cunningham, said the officers of the Palestine Administration had no cause for self-reproach or sense of personal failure. Mr Attlee said the administrators, often in personal danger, had established a tradition of loyal public service, although “ rewarded with baseless calumnies and imputations of partiality.”