Arab Armies Determined To Continue Fighting In Palestine War

Wanganui Chronicle, 25 May 1948, Page 5

Arab Armies Determined To Continue Fighting In Palestine War

REFUSAL OF UNITED NATIONS' REQUEST FOR CEASE FIRE (N.Z.P.A.—Copyright). deceived 12.15 a.m. LONDON. May 24 The Arab armies will continue fighting in Palestine and will accept only the unconditional surrender of the Jewish forces, says an official announcement in Baghdad. No notice will be taken of the United Nations' request for a cease fire. Reuter’s Damascus correspondent says a Syrian communique states: “Syrian aircraft successfully raided Degania and Kinneret, both on the southern shores of the Sea of Galilee. Haganah headquarters were hit.” Faqzi el Kawakji, commander-in-chief of the Arab Liberation Army, arrived at Damascus to confer with Arab military chiefs.

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 Arab ’ Legion troops and Egyptian volunteers entered Ramat Rahil, a Jewish colony between Jerusalem and Bethlehem, after Egyptian artillery shelled it. (It is not known who controls Jerusalem radio, but the broadcast, which was picked up by an Arab League monitoring station in Cairo, was made in Arabic.)

The Arab Legion also said that its forces had completed the encirclement of the Jewish forces in the southern part of 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 was applied to both sides. He saw no reason for excluding the 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."

Washington, May 23. Israel today gave a cease-fire order on all fronts in Palestine, to be effective at 8 p.m. (Jerusalem time) on Monday. This information was cabled to the State Department by Mr. William Burdett, American vice-consul in Jerusalem, who said the Jewish Agency had given him the following message: “The provisional Government of Israel has ordered the ceasefire on all fronts as at 8 p.m., local Jewish time, on May 24. If the other side ceases fire at any earlier hour, then the Jewish cease-fire order will come into effect at that earlier hour. If, after 8 p.m., the other side does not cease fire, the Jewish defence must continue." Jewish Agency officials told Mr. .» Burdett that the move was being made in response to the Security Council's appeal to both the Jews and the Arabs to cease fire. Mr. Burdett is the acting United States representative of the United Nations truce commission following the death of Mr. Thomas' Wasson, American Consul-General in Jerusalem, who was fatally wounded yesterday by a sniper’s bullet. The State Department made no comment on Mr. Burdett’s message. Reuter’s correspondent at Lake Success says that the Jewish agreement to cease fire was not unexpected, because Israel now possesses almost the entire area allotted by the United Nations partition plan. A possible effect of the cease-fire is that the Arabs will disregard it, whereupon the United States intends pressing in the Security Council stronger charges of aggression against the Arabs. London, May 24. Arabs and Jews observed a ceasefire at 5.30 pin. local time on Saturday and evacuated under Red Cross supervision Jewish sick and medical staff from the Hadassah Hospital, which the Arabs encircled. A condition of the cease-fire is that the Jewish forces in the hospital and the Hebrew University nearby should be withdrawn. The British military authorities in Haifa said they had received reports that a British consular guard had r;een killed and an American naval man seriously wounded in . The Haganah claimed the capture if Tantura, the last Arab stronghold between the Lebanese frontier and fewish-held Jaffa. The Haganah also claimed the capture of a police fortress at Ras en Nakuia, on the Leoan;se border. A Jewish spokesman said that the Lebanese forces had been withdrawn to or across the Lebanese rrontier. Jews firmly held the Syrian and Lebanese border areas, and only mated pockets of Arab resistance emained in the whole of Upper Galilee. CONFLICTING REPORTS. Though the Jews announced on Friday that they occupied Sampkh, on the north-eastern front in Palestine,, and had repelled subsequent attacks, a Syrian communique on Sunday claimed that Arabs fully controlled Samakh and the surrounding area. Tel Aviv had a brief bomoless alert esterday morning after a 24-hour •ill in air raids —the first since the .-.rabs began their raids on May 15. A communique of the Arab armies’ high command states that artillery destroyed an ammunition factory on the eastern shores of the Sea of Galilee. Arab guns sank a merchant ship on the Sea of Galilee. The Arab high command communique also claimed the capture of th* Damascus Gate of the Old City of Jerusalem. Menahem Beigin, leader of the Irgun Zvai Leumi, said that all the British officers serving with the Arab Legion had been sentenced tc death by the Irgun, which was setting up a special unit to carry out the sentences. HEAVY DEMOLITIONS. Reuter's correspondent with the Arab Legion in Jerusalem says that if Arab sappers continue the 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 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 the poslerslon of the big Notre Dame Hospice, just outside the walls of the Old City Armoured cars with two-poun-der guns are fighting in the streets, where the bodies of the dead sometimes lie for days. Arab Legion guns launched a heavy

dawn bombardment on the Jewish positions in New Jerusalem, concentrated on the Mekor Haim and Talpooth districts, south-west of the city, as well as the Mes Shearim and San Hedriva quarters at the north. Guns also shelled Jerusalem’s railway station after the Jews had been seen concentrating armoured cars and buses there. Arabs surrounded the Italian Hospital and advanced toward Barclay’s Bank, which came under artillery fire.