BATTLE GROWS NEAR JERUSALEM

Grey River Argus, 13 April 1948, Page 5

BATTLE GROWS NEAR JERUSALEM

ARABS BRING DOWN REINFORCEMENTS (Rec. 6.35) LONDON, April 12. ' The fighting has intensified round Jerusalem. The Daily Telegraph’s Jerusalem correspondent says: The Arabs have brought strong reinforcements into the area west of the city, where the battle for Mount Castel is still raging.

The passenger train service between Palestine and Egypt was suspended on Sunday until further notice. This has followed on the blowing up by terrorists, twice in the past few weeks, of the Cairo-Haifa express.

The situation in Palestine has during the weekend taken a marked turn for the worse. Feelings have become even more embittered. Hopes of a truce, unless one is dictated by influences outside of the country, seem very remote.

The correspondent added: At Deir Yassim village on Friday the__ Jews massacred 245 Arabs—men, women and children—and’ this massacre has illustrated the extent to which the Palestine Government is now unable to exercise its authoritv. Although the outrage occurred within three miles of the Palestine High Commissioner’s residence and of the British Army Headquarters, the Government has not been able to send official representatives or troops into Deir Yassim.

The International Red Cross represenative, M. Jacques de Reynier, after a visit to Deir Yassim village, where the Stern Gang and the Irgun Zvai Leumi on April 9 massacred 254 Arab men, women and children, said that about 150 bodies had been dumped in a disused well, but could not be removed as originally intended, because of firing. M. de Reynier added that about 50 bodies, which were strewn round the village, would also be placed in the well, which would be sealed.

Dr Hussein Khalidi, secretary of the Arab Higher Committee, quoting M. de Reynier, said that bodies were mutilated, including those of 25 pregnant women, 52 mothers with babies, and also 60 girls. Dr Khalidi called the Deir Yassim affair the “massacre of the innocents”. . He accused Jews living around Deir Yassim of violating the mutual non-molestation agreement and the Palestine Government and British Army authorities of indifference.

The Jewish Agency, expressing “horror and disgust” at the Deir Yassim massacre, appealed to the Arabs and the Jews to conduct the present conflict “according to the rules of civilised warfare”, and observe the rights of the civilian populations.

Family Victims of Village Massacre

(Rec. 8.55-). JERUSALEM, April 12. A twelve-year-old Arab girl, Fatimeh Zeidan, who is now in hospital with a grenade wound, told reporters how she took her brothers and sisters into their yard, and hid them behind a donkey as Jews swept into Deir Yassim. She said: “My baby sister started to' cry, and a, Jew found us”. Fatimeh said that the Jews, after they had driven the Arab women and children survivors from Deir Yassim into the outskirts of Jerusalem, told them to alight. She said: “The men formed a circle. Jewish girls stripped us naked. They took our rings and our ear-rings. Then, while we were

naked, they took our pictures. Then they told us to walk to- the Jaffa Gate”.

Fatimeh’s mother, her grandmother, her two older brothers, and one three-months-old sister perished in the attack on the village. Her father, brother and sister are also in hospital with wounds.

Massacre Survivors

Paraded by Jews

(Rec. 8.55). JERUSALEM, April 12.

Khalidi alleges that one hundred and fifty women and children, the survivors of the Deir Yassim village massacre of Friday last, were paraded through Jewish areas in a truck, and were spat upon and stoned. The Arabs, intend to draw the attention of Britain and the United Nations to the Palestine administration’s non-co-operation in the removal of the dead from Deir Yassim.

Jews Seize Guns from Soldiers

(Rec. 8.40). JERUSALEM, April 12. A party of armed Jews fatally shot a British soldier while he was sitting in a coffee house in Rehoboth. His two soldier companions escaped. The Jews seized the soldiers’ three Sten guns, and made off. The Haganah radio claimed that one British officer and one Iraqi officer were killed when Haganah forces completed the destruction of the Arab village of Calunia. near Mount Caste!, live miles west of Jerusalem. SHELLING OF JERUSALEM Arabs, using French 75’s, fired 40 shells into Jerusalem’s western suburbs —in places only half a mile from the Holy Sepulchre. The Jews late last night were evacuating people from houses and institutions in the shelled areas. Big crowds gathered at the first-aid stations and hospitals. The Haganah claimed tc\ have occupied C’astel village, on Mount Caste!, again yesterday. Arab resumption of the attacks on its defences followed the reoccupation. ARAB OFFENSIVE IN NORTH The Jews reported that several thousand Iraqi troops, led by Fawzi el Kawakji, attacked Mishmar Haemek, north Palestine, at dawn to-day. A mountain gun barrage supported the Iraquis.