Arabs Shell Secret Roadway to Jerusalem

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26794, 10 June 1948, Page 5

Arabs Shell Secret Roadway to Jerusalem

Eec 10 p.m. LONDON, June 9. Arab Legion guns shelled a new track which the Haganah secretly built to replace the Jerusalem-Tel-Aviv road which the Arabs blockaded. The Jerusalem correspondent of the Associated Press says there is no evidence that any supplies had reached the beleaguered Jews in Jerusalem over the track before it was shelled. The Arabs also shelled a new Jewish airstrip which it is believed the Jews hoped to use for transport planes. An Amman communique says the Arab Legion was forced to fire on potash workers south of the Dead Sea because the workers were aggressive and using firearms. Saudi-Arabian troops went into then first action in Palestine when they cooperated with Egyptian units in attacking. Zionist convoys, says an Egyptian Defence Ministry communique Egyptian bombers raided Tel-Aviv Harbour, scoring a direct hit on a cargo boat and sinking several smaller craft. Jewish anti-aircraft fire brought down an Egyptian Spitfire south of Tel-Aviv. The Haifa correspondent of the Daily Telegraph says_ the withdrawal of British forces from Palestine through Haifa has been speeded up to such an extent that . unofficial sources say the operation may be completed this month unless there are policy changes. The Jews are already preparing an organisation to take over the port imrdediately the Union Jack is hauled down. They foresee prompt Arab attacks by air and sea, and are seeking permission to install anti-aircraft and other defences around the port areas before the final British departure. A Jewish communique reports a fierce struggle in the Beit Sanim area, where an •“ encircled ” Egyptian column is attacking. The Jews do not explain this apparent wresting of the initiative by the Egyptian spearhead, which the Jews claimed was encircled almost a week ago, but the projected visit of correspondents to the front was cancelled. Tel-Aviv had several air raids. The main section of the city was bombed, and there were a number of casualties Count Bernadotte’s Tel-Aviv office was severely damaged in one raid but the staff were not hurt. A later message, quoting a member of Count Bernadotte’s staff, stated that the mediatoi had no office in Tel-Aviv. On the northern front, Syrian planes bombed five settlements, including Naharia. Iraqis carried out patrols. In the Jerusalem area the Jews on

Mount Scopus used mortars on the Arabs, who retaliated with artillery fire. A Jewish mortar shell last night burst on one dome of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. An iron grille between the inner and outer domes prevented the shell falling on Christ’s tomb, and this was the third shell to hit the building. Heads of Christian communities met this morning and drew up a protest which they are sending to the United Nations Security Council and the Vatican, pointing out that there were no military objects near the holy places. The International Red Cross is negotiating for a third security zone in Jerusalem to cover the Jewish University and the Hadassah Hospital on Mount Scopus. The new zone will protect the women and children still in the besieged city and safeguard the university’s priceless scientific and literary treasures. . , Eighty Jewish women prisoners of war were released by the Arabs, and reached Tel-Aviv from sn internment camp in Transjordan to-day. Twenty-four thousand Jewish mterness on Cyprus who have been on a hunger strike for a day against the British ban on emigration of ablebodied men to Palestine decideu to extend the strike. A Paris message says that 39 people were killed and 25 injured at Djerada, Morocco, in Arab-Jew fighting over the Palestine war. Fighting began when news reached Djerada of the clash at Oudja yesterday, in which five people were killed and 30 injured Oudja is a mining centre near the Algerian frontier. Djerada is 40 miles from Oudjii. The police said those killed at Djerada were Jews French fighter-bombers later patrolled over both villages, where the police reported that order had been restored. In Washington, Sir Oliver Franks, the Recently-arrived British Ambassador to the United States, to-day called for an end to Anglo-American recrimination over the Palestine problem in order to achieve a mutual solution. He declared that achievement of a mutual approach was difficult when “ each other’s faith is being impugned.” Sir Oliver; who was addressing the National Press Club, where he was enthusiastically received claimed that both Britain and the United States were jointly determined that peace should be restored in Palestine, and that settlement with justice to both sides should be sought through the United Nations.