NEW CITY BOMBED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26782, 27 May 1948, Page 5

NEW CITY BOMBED

ARABS’ AERIAL ATTACK LULL IN GROUND FIGHTING N.Z.P.A.—Copyright Rec. 11 p.m. LONDON, May 26. Arab planes attacked Jewish quarters of the New City of Jerusalem with high-explosive and incendiary bombs, according to the Ilaganah. s In an earlier message, Reuter’s correspondent with the Arab Legion in Jerusalem said there were no indications of a cease-fire in the Old City, although the artillery bombardment was not so heavy and there were frequent lulls in the fighting. The Arab Legion had not received any ceasefire instructions. The Arab ring around Jerusalem was slowly contracting, and threatened to cut off Jews deployed around the Zion Convent on Mount Zion. A Reuter report from Cairo says the Arabic newspaper A 1 Ahrain says that Egypt had rejected the UNO cease-fire order. A Transjordan Ministry of Defence communique claims that 600 Jews were killed in a 24-hour battle for Latrun, on the vital Jerusalem-Tcl-Aviv highway, about 20 miles west of Jerusalem. The communique adds that the attacking Jewish force was completely eliminated, and “ our casualties were trifling.” The communique says the Arabs seized all the, Jewish weapons, including rifles, machine-guns, Bren guns and mortars. Jewish Attack on Zion Gate Jewish armoured cars at midnight last night launched an assault to try to relieve the Jewish fighters hemmed in the shrinking pocket inside the Old

City of Jerusalem, says Reuter’s correspondent with the Arab Lefeion. The attackers tried to burst in through the Zion Gate, or blast a hole in the wall to let Irgun and Haganah troops escape. The trapped Jews during a relief attack tried to scale the walls with ropes, but Arab Legion posts machine-gunned them. The Arabs to-day dynamited four buildings in the old Jewish quarter, says the Associated Press correspondent inside Jerusalem. It is believed that many Jews are entombed beneath rubble. The Arab Legion claimed that the Notre Dame Hospice had been completely cleared of Haganah defenders. The Egyptian authorities issued an order forbidding ships to approach Egyptian territorial waters between sunset and sunrise. The order said that any ship violating the instruction would be fired upon. Recruits from Europe A Jewish source in Frankfurt (Germany) said that 2500 Jews of fighting age from displaced persons’ camps in

the United States zone had left Germany without exit permits. Reuter’s Vienna correspondent says that the French licensed newspaper, Welt Am Abend, had reported that thp mobilisation of -Jews in the United States zone in Austria begins immediately. Seven hundred British troops and 360 Palestine police boarded the troopship Cheshire at Haifa, leaving only 400 police volunteers in Palestine to help supervise the final withdrawal. 1 Three ships in the port of Haifa are taking on machinery, navy cranes, tractors, and other vehicles. Haifa’s heap of gun barrels awaiting destruction is growing bigger every day. The British have closed Haifa to incoming passenger traffic to avoid interference with the evacuation. An Israel spokesman said the Jews would protest to the British. Since the Palestine mandate ended 1050 Jews have entered Palestine through Haifa under quotas granted to the Jewish Agency before the mandate ended.