ARABS PLAN TO STARVE OUT JEWS IN JERUSALEM

Grey River Argus, 3 April 1948, Page 3

ARABS PLAN TO STARVE OUT JEWS IN JERUSALEM

LONDON, April 2 In Jerusalem, bread, eggs, butter and sugar are already rationed in •Jerusalem, and supplies dangerously low. A correspondent stated it was obvious that the Arab strategy is to starve out the Jews in Jerusalem. There is only one way for the fertile Jewish coastal strip between Tel Aviv and Haifa to feed .Jerusalem, and that, is by road. The police announced that, a Jewish food convoy trying to fight its v/ay to the 100,000 Jews besieged in the Old City ul Jerusalem lost two armoured cars, one lorry, and one tractor. Arabs ambushed and stopped the convoy at the village of Huida in the Judean hills, south of Lydda. Fifteen Jews were killed. Jewish sources say the Arabs forced the convoy to turn back after it made a second attempt to fight its way through roadblocks near Huida. Arabs, in an attack last night, are reported to have captured six of the armoured lorries. Another report said 10 of the 00 lorries from the convoy broke through the ambush. Several hundred Arabs attacked a Jewish convoy from Tel Aviv, which was attempting to take food to Jerusalem. The Arabs claimed that they surrounded the convoy and killed and wounded many Jews in a prolonged battle. The Jewish Agency has not asked for Government aid in escorting convoys, though the Arabs control all roads leading to the Holy City. The London correspondent of the New Zealand Press Association quotes correspondents in Jerusalem to say that more than 90.000 Jews in Jerusalem may be starving V'lthln a few days unless the United Nat’ons takes action.