ARAB GUNS SHELL HOLY CITY

Wanganui Chronicle, 12 April 1948, Page 5

ARAB GUNS SHELL HOLY CITY

Jerusalem At One Stage Was Cut Off From The Coast

(N.Z.P.A.—Copyright.) Received 7 p.m. _ JERUSALEM, April 11 The Holy City, in its first bombardment in history, received at least, ten shells in the suburbs from a position plotted by military observers as being near Castel, which the Arabs yesterday claimed to have recaptured. Bombardment of Jerusalem lasted fifteen minutes. After the arrival of Arab reinforcements the shelling of Jewish defences in Castel was renewed. Only two or three of the village’s 40 houses are said to be intact.

Jewish terrorists last night offered Red Cross officials safe conduct today to the Arab village of Deir Yassira to remove the bodies of 254 Arab men, women and children. The bodies will be delivered to the Arabs at one of the eastern gates of the old eity. Arab gunners tonight fired a salvo of shells into the Jewish suburbs of Givat Shaul, New Montefiore and Beth Hakarem in western Jerusalem. The deaths of three Jews are so far reported. This attack brought the Holy City under shellfire for the first time in history. Three British soldiers were killed and six wounded when two lorry loads of troops ran into ar. Arab barrage directed against Jewish traffic on the western approaches to Jerusalem Agency correspondents report that the Arabs launched a pre-dawn artillery counter-attack on Castel, a village on Mount Castel, and later claimed that they had thrown out Haganah forces which occupied it on Friday.

The village was originally an Arab strongpoint dominating the main Jerusalem-Tel-Aviv supply route. It has changed hands three times in the past week’s fighting. The arrival of Iraqi irregulars, whom the Arab commander in northern Palestine sent as reinforcements, is believed to have enabled the Arabs successfully to storm the fortress again.

The Mount Castel fighting is reaching battle proportions, and thrusting the possibility of an Arab-Jew truce ever farther into the background Jewish and Arab battles on the western approaches to Jerusalem have cut all communications between the city and the coast. Arab field-guns bombarded two Jewish settlements, five miles west of Jerusalem, flanking the strategically-placed Arab village of Castel. A Jewish offensive against Arab villages which have been used to blockade the supply route from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, appears to

have lost momentum. Arabs and Jews are both bringing up reinforcements, as full scale warfare, with artillery and aerial bombing and machine-gunniit;, enters its second week. The British Army took over the Christian village of Ain Karem, five miles south-west of Jerusalem, to prevent the ancient Crusaders’ fortress from falling into the hands of either side. 'The Haganah announced that Arab women and children whom the Stern Gang and Irgun Zvai Leumi took prisoner in their massacre of men, women, and children at Deir Yassim village, have been handed over to the British authorities.