STOP PRESS NEWS FIGHTING IN PALESTINE

Waikato Times, Volume 88, Issue 13649, 1 December 1917, Page 4

STOP PRESS NEWS FIGHTING IN PALESTINE

FURTHER BRITISH ADVANCE. DESPITE STRONG OPPOSITION. (Reuter's Telegrams'.) Received Dec. i, 3.25 p.m. LONDON, Nov. 30. Reuter's correspondent, writing from Egyptian headquarters on Thursday, says our troops have made great progress since his last dispatch. Our advance posts now hold hill Neby Samuel, which was the Mount Ivoy of tiie Crusaders' day, where they obtained their first view of the Holy City. We advanced from the west, threatening the main roads leading to Jerusalem, Schechem and the modern Nablous. Our progress was not easy nor undisputed. These Judean hills lend themselves to defensive tactics, the bare rocky slopes being intersected by deep narrow defiles. Only one tolerable road was left, which the Turks mined in several places, but we restored it without much difficulty. The rain last week greatly intensified the discomfort of the men, the nights already being extremely chilly. The Scottish troops made a pathway six miles long and helped to man-handle the guns to enable them to be brought into effective action. Despite otherwise unfavourable circumstances, the Turks put up a stout resistance at Latroun, where the JaffaJerusalem and the Gaza-Jerusalem roads meet. They held more tenaciously the ridge of Kury-el-Tenab, the Riblical Kirjath-jiarim, where they only yielded to a bayonet charye by the Gurkhas and Somersets, supported by the Wiltshires. The Turkish headquarters seem to have been transferred to Nablous, and his main strength appears to be concentrated at this place and Turkeram, both of which are joined by a stragetic railway running to Ramleh. They also hold Nablous, Shanshef and Jerusalem with the chief display of strength in the neighbourhood of Bireh el Jid, better known as jGideon. On Wednesday and Tuesday the enemy exerted considerable pressure along our front, attacks at Neby Samuel being beaten off. Our aviators have accounted for 19 enemy planes since the beginning of the offensive. ; ■