Britain Had No Intention Of Waging War With Israel

Wanganui Chronicle, 6 January 1949, Page 5

Britain Had No Intention Of Waging War With Israel

(N. Z. P. A.—Reuter—Copyright! LONDON, Jan. 4.—“ Britain has no intention of waging war with Israel,” said the British Consul-General in Palestine, Mr. Cyril Marriott, according to Reuter’s Haifa correspondent. An Israeli spokesman today denied that the Egyptians had staged coun-ter-attacks in the Negev. He said United Nations observers were still barred from the area until new arrangements for observing procedure were worked out.

The biggest battle so far fought in Palestine is now raging in the Negev, said the Egyptian Foreign Minister, Abaza Pasha, quoted by the British United Press Cairo correspondent. Official Egyptian sources said the Jews were attacking with the largest forces they had ever used in Palestine, but declared that the Egyptian forces were holding their ground. An Egyptian War Ministry spokesman said the Jews had opened attacks all along the southern Palestine front. The Jewish offensive was directed against Egyptian advance

bases in the direction of Rafah, near the Egyptian frontier. The spokesman added that Egyptian forces had halted the Jewish push, and Egyptian planes had destroyed most of the 45 Jewish armoured cars moving forward.

Other reports say that Jewish infantry, supported by planes and armoured units, are heavily attacking an Egyptian pocket at Faluja and other strongpoints. It is claimed that repeated Jewish attacks have been repulsed and heavy losses inflicted. Reuter's Bagdad correspondent reports that a Ministry ot Defence, communique said that Iraqi units in Palestine forced Israeli forces to retreat, and fighting was now developing in favour of the Iraqi forces. In Cairo, the Egyptian Foreign Office said that Jews on the night of January 1 and at daylight on January 2 bombed Gaza. The statement said that United Nations observers described the Jewish raid as a violation of the Geneva, convention, because civilians were involved.