Haifa Scene of British Evacuation

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26780, 25 May 1948, Page 5

Haifa Scene of British Evacuation

While the explosion of - bursting shells shakes St. George's Cathedral in Jerusalem, the Rt. Rev. W. H. Stewart in his long purple robes is inside operating the British community’s radio transmitter which links up the scattered British community and sends correspondents’ despatches, says Reuter’s Jerusalem correspondent. No armed men are allowed in the Cathedral grounds, but the Jewish and Arab battle-lines are only 15 yards apart outside. Shell blast has smashed many of the cathedral’s windows. Reuter’s correspondent with the Arab Legion in Jerusalem says if Arab sappers continue their present rate of demolitions they will have wiped out every building of the Jewish quarter of Jerusalem within a week. Great explosions shattered Jewish buildings as Arab Legion men and irregulars slowly advanced house by house into the Jewish quarter. Hundreds of Haganah and Irgun Zvai Leumi men, trapped in the city, are fighting to the death in the ruins and underground tunnels. Arab Legionaires and Jews are battling room by room for possession of the big Notre Dame hospice, just outside the walls of the Old City. Arabs surrounded the Italian hospital and advanced towards Barclay’s Bank, which came under artillery fire. Egyptian and Arab Legion forces have linked up two miles south of Jerusalem, according to an announcement in Amman by Azzam Pasha, Secretary-general of the Arab League. Jerusalem radio said that the Arab Legion and Egyptian volunteers had entered Ramat Rahil, a Jewish colony between Jerusalem and Bethlehem, after Egyptian artillery shelled it. lit is not known who controls Jerusalem radio, bul the broadcast which was picked up by the Arab League monitoring station in Cairo was made m Arabic). The Arab Legion also said its forces had completed the encirclement of Jewish forces in the southern part ol Jerusalem. . Azzam Pasha, in announcing the

link-up, said the Arabs insisted on the complete disarmament of the Jewish forces in Jerusalem as the basis of any truce, but would not object if disarmament applied to both sides. He saw no reason for excluding Arabs from control of Jerusalem and making it an international free city. “ Why isolate Jerusalem, creating a new Tangier, with all its international jealousies,” he said. . "Jerusalem is doomed. There is no chance for the Jews.” Arabs and Jews observed a cease fire at 5.30 p.m. local time yesterday to allow the evacuation under Red Cross supervision of Jewish sick medical staff from Hadassah Hospital, which the Arabs had encircled. A cease-fire condition was that Jewish forces in the hospital and the nearby Hebrew University should be withdrawn. The British military authorities in Haifa said that they had received reports that a British consular guard had been killed and an American naval man seriously wounded in Jerusalem. A later message from Washington said the State Department announced the second American fatality in Jerusalem, a United States Navy radioman detailed to the United States Consulate. He died of machine gun wounds inflicted on Friday. Haganah claimed the capture of Tanturah, the last Arab stronghold between the Lebanese frontier and Jew-ish-held Jaffa. Haganah also claimed the capture of a police fortress as Ras en Nakuia, on the Lebanese border. A Jewish spokesman said that Lebanese forces had been withdrawn to or across the Lebanese frontier. The Jews firmly held the SyrianLebanese border areas and only isolated pockets of Arab resistance remained in the whole of Upper Galilee. Menahem Beigin, leader of the Irgun Zvai Leumi, said that all British officers serving with the Arab Legion bad been sentenced to death by Irgun, which was setting up a special unit to carry out the sentences.