TERMINATION SOUGHT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26774, 18 May 1948, Page 5

TERMINATION SOUGHT

EGYPTIAN INTERVENTION APPEAL TO SECURITY COUNCIL N.Z.P.A.—Copyright Rec. 10 p.m. NEW YORK, May 16. Israel's Foreign Secretary, Mr Moshe Shertok, to-day appealed to the Security Council to halt intervention by Egypt in the Holy Land. In a telegram relayed to the Council’s president, M.- Alexandre Parodi, by New York officials of the Jewish Agency, Mr Shertok detailed acts of aggression which he said had been committed by the Egyptian forces. He urged immediate action by the council “to check and prevent this open aggression by a member of the United Nations carried on by its regular forces.” The acts listed in the telegram included am raids on Tel-Aviv and the Nirim settlement in Negev by planes with Egyptian Air Force markings, and the shelling of Nirim by an Egyptian Army mechanised column.

The telegi'am adds: “ Large concentrations of Egyptian regular troops are reported from Gaza and the movements of Egyptian mechanised columns have been observed in other parts of southern Palestine.” Mr Eliahu Epstein, envoy to the United States from Israel’s Provisional Government, said in an interview today that the original operation against

the. Arab Jaffa was never approved by the Jewish Agency. He added that in future Israel would have “no designs on parts of Palestine outside our own State boundaries.” Israel to-day cabled the SecretaryGeneral, Mr Trygve Lie, formally requesting membership, of the United Nations. King Abdullah of Transjordan also cabled to-day notifying the Secretary-General that his armies had invaded Palestine. The Egyptian Government filed a similar notification with the United Nations yesterday. King Abdullah, in his message, stated that Transjordan forces “ were compelled to enter Palestine to protect unarmed Arabs against massacres similar to those of Deir Yassim,” he added. “We are aware of our national duty toward Palestine in general and Jerusalem in particular, also Nazareth and Bethlehem. We shall be very considerate in connection with the Jews in Palestine while maintaining at the same time the full rights of the Arabs. Zionism did not react to our offers made before the entry of armed forces.” Abdel Rahman Azzam Pasha, secre-tary-general of the Arab League, in a message to Mr Lie, repeated the Arab demands for a united Arab State over the whole of Palestine.