PALESTINE AS PRESENTED TO MIDDLE AMERICA IN JUNE, 1948

TEL AVIV, June 3-(UP)
Fighting raged in Palestine today while Count Folke Bernadette of Sweden plunged into a new series of conferences with top Arab leaders to set the hour and date for a four weeks truce in the Arab-Jewish war.

Bernadette announced he planned a meeting at noon with Egyptian Premier Mohmoud Fahmy Nokrashy Pasha in Cairo and then would leave by air for meetings with other Arab and Jewish leaders in Amman, Tel Aviv and Beirut.

Bernadette is expected to spend three days or more arranging for both sides to agree on a definate cease fire hour.  The date will be set far enough in advance for both sides to advise all isolated outposts.  Thus the cease fire order may not be effective for a week or more.

LAKE SUCCESS, N.Y., June 4-(UP)
United Nations security council members admitted privately today that only a miracle could make the Jews and Arabs agree to a truce in Palestine at this time.

The council passed the job of stopping the increasingly violent Holy Land war to UN Mediator Count Folke Bernadette of Sweden.  But by refusing to give Bernadette any specific instructions, the council tactitly admitted that it saw no way of reconciling the different interpretations Israel and the Arab states have made to the UN plan for a four weeks truce with a mideast arms embargo.

TEL AVIV, June 4-(UP)
Fighting in the Palestine war mounted in intensity by land, sea and air today while Count Folke Bernadette's United Nations committee speeded efforts to establish a truce.

A blazing 24 hours brought these military developments:

1. One Israeli fighter pilot shot down two Egyptian twin-engine Dakota bombers over the Tel Aviv area last night.  A third Egyptian bomber was hit but escaped.

2. the Egyptian government announced in Cairo that one of its warships attacked the Israeli port of Caesarea, midway between Haifa and Tel Aviv, sinking one Jewish ship and shelling port installations.

3. Israeli forces fought their way into the city limits of Jenin, northern anchor of the Arab salient threatening the Jewish coastal area between Haifa and Tel Aviv.  The salient, called the "dangerous triangle" by the Jews, is based on Jenin, Tulkarim and Nablus.

4. An Israel communique claimed that Egyptian forces as Isdud, on the border of the Jewish state 24 miles south of Tel Aviv, have been surrounded and are being heavily blasted by warplanes and artillery.

5. Jewish sources charged that Egyptian planes raided a bus station in Rishon Le Zion, six miles southeast of Tel Aviv, bombing and strafing a civilian queue of men, women and children.  Casualties were said to be heavy.

6. An Israeli front report said Jewish planes bombed Nablus, southeastern anchor of the Arab triangle and headquarters of Fawzi El Kawkji's volunteer Arab army.  Hits were made on the Arab headquarters in the police station, the communique claimed.

Bernadette worked swiftly as the Palestine battle broadened, interviewing Arab and Jewish leaders in quick succession in an effort to reach agreement on the application of cease fire terms and the hour they should go into effect.

Last night in Haifa the Swedish count, appointed a special mediator for Palestine by the United Nations, conferred two and one half hours with israel Foreign Minister Moshe Shertok.

Bernadette remained in Haifa overnight and was scheduled to fly to Cairo early today for further talks with Arab leaders there.

LAKE SUCCESS, N.Y., June 5-(UP)
An Israel spokesman predicted a quick halt in the Palestine war today despite the announcement that the question of Jewish immigration into the Holy Land was holding up a cease-fire agreement.

The Israeli representative said he thought the key immigration issue could be worked out in on-the-spot negotiations among the disputants and United Nations mediator Count Folke Bernadette.

Bernadette reported to the security council that "the question of Jewish immigration into Palestine for the duration of the truce is alone obstructing an agreement between the two parties."  He appealed to the council for "urgent" and "official" clarification of its truce resolution.

However Council President Faris El-Khouri of Syria, after a series of telephone calls to various members of the UN secretariat, ruled that the council had given Bernadette a green light on making his own interpretations of the resolution.  It was the second time in two days that the council had ducked an opportunity to clear up the controversy over just what the immigration sections of its truce proposal meant.

The Israeli forecast of a cease fire accord stemmed from the military successes Israel's armed forces in their new stepped-up offensives.

Cease-Fire Agreement Will Start at 6 a.m. Friday
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TEL AVIV, June 11-(UP)
A 28 day truce in Palestine suffered staggering blows in its first hours today when the Arabs and Jews accused each other officially of violating it.

Arab and Jewish charges and recriminations came soon after the 2 a.m. EDT deadline for the silencing of the guns of Palestine.  The United Nations proposed the truce and Count Folke Bernadotte negotiated its acceptance by the warring factions.

The High command of Israeli's army was the first official quarter to charge that the truce had been broken.  Its daily communique said reports received  to two hours after the deadline indicated Arab troops were fighting without pause in some sectors.

A little later an Egyptian government announcement, broadcast from Cairo, said "we have learned the Zionists violated the cease fire in three fronts."

Jewish sources in Haifa reported that the Arabs launched an attack against the Sejerah settlement near Afula 30 minutes after the hour for peace.  They said the Sejerah attack and several others still were being pressed.

The first official word of violation of the truce which the UN security council devised as a stepping stone to permanent peace came in the daily Israeli war communique.

"Reports received up to noon today indicate firing ceased in some sectors, but the Arabs are continuing to attack Jewish positions in others after the rearline (deadline)," it said.

Haifa dispatches said travelers arriving there from the Jenin front said fighting was still going on when they left that area well past the zero hour set by the UN mediator, Count Folke Bernadotte of Sweden.

The witnesses were unable to say which side was doing the shooting in the area of Jenin, the northern anchor of the Arab triangle northeast of Tel Aviv.

Egypt heralded the cease fire order with a fanfare of bugles, even as the first party of truce observers was on its way from Cairo to Palestine by plane to supervise the suspension of hostilities.

A spokesman for Bernadotte's mediation party said in Cairo that additional observers were arriving there today to strengthen the international team he was putting in the field.

In Tel Aviv, a Red Cross plane roared over the seafront area early this afternoon.  Thousands of persons dashed to rooftops and the beach promanade to see it.  A rumor spread through the crowd that Bernadotte was coming to Tel Aviv to see for himself how the truce was working.

In the last hours before the truce deadline, Jewish planes bombed the Syrian capital of Damascus, while Arabs gave the Jewish-held modern quarter of Jerusalem one of tis stiffest pastings of the campaign.

The political conflict, inevitable regardless of the outcome of the truce, went on unabated.

BULLETINS

CAIRO, June 12.-(UP)
Count Folke Bernadotte and his United Nations advisors made a flying trip to Jerusalem today while Arab and Jewish leaders still continued to charge each other with violations of the Palestine truce.

Bernadotte said he would stay in the Holy City for just a few hours "to get a first hand impression of the situation."  However, one team of truce observers already was in Palestine and others were reported on the way.

Pablo Azcarate, United Nations representative who spent some time in Jerusalem  when it was a battle ground, stayed behind in Cairo to act as a contact between the Arab League and Bernadotte's mediation party.

Press reports said Secretary General Abdul Rahman Azzma Pasha of the Arab League called an urgent early morning meeting of league representatives to discuss reports that Jewish troops in northern Palestine early today.

The reports said another Arab protest was made to Bernadotte over this alleged violation in addition to Arab charges of four other Jewish truce violations made yesterday.

Reports from Tel Aviv said the Jews also continued to make charges that the Arabs were violating the cease-fire.  The Israel army chief of staff claimed the Syrians attacked after the truce deadline at Mishmar Hayarden, in upper Galilee, using artillery, armor and planes.

Arab Legion troops made a five hour attack on Jewish-held villages in the Lydda area, the Jewish spokesman said, and Egyptian troops in the Gaza-Isdud area attacked around noon.

Meanwhile, in Haifa, the 20,000 ton British troopship Samaria began loading an estimated 3,000 British troops, including a large group of colonials bound for Egypt and North Africa.

LAKE SUCCESS, N.Y., June 12.-(UP)
The United States will send truce patrol ships and planes to Palestine in response to an urgent appeal from United Nations Mediator Count Folke Bernadotte, it was learned today.

Bernadotte tel(e)phoned UN headquarters to report that the six ships he had requested from the United States, France and Belgium were needed urgently to maintain the uneasy truce which began yesterday morning.  He urged UN officials to exert every effort to speed the delivery of the small force which will do the truce policing.

An American spokesman who explained the United States had only been awaiting Bernadotte's formal request, said the U.S would send the three ships requested by the mediator.  In this original request Tuesday, Bernadotte also asked France to provide two ships and Belgium one.  However he complained to UN headquarters that none of the ships requested from the three countries which form the security council's Jerusalem truce commission have appeared in Mideast waters.

Bernadotte also decided to duck the touchy question of using British ships and planes- an issue which had brought an Israeli warning that the truce might end if there were British participation,"however small," in the truce police force.

NEW YORK, JUNE 19-(UP)
Fifty young men, converted overnight into the first United Nations "army" leave for Palestine today to help supervise the Holy Land armistice.

The hastily-recruited volunteers will travel to the Holy Land by chartered plane to help Count Folke Bernadotte and his UN mediation team enforce the truce agreement between Arabs and Jews.  They will be armed upon their arrival.

The blue-uniformed force, loaded down with duffle-bags and a variety of equipment gathered together in less than 48 hours, was slated to leave La Guardia field at 5:30 P.M.  Their leader was Lieut. John Co(s)grove, a former law student and army intelligence officer who up to now has been concerned with the peaceful job of running the unarmed group of guards who patrol the UN's headquarters at Lake Success.

Thirty of the 50 guards picked for Palestine came from Cosgrove's headquarters force and the others were selected from nearly 100 UN secretariat employe(e)s  who answered a call for volunteers.

As an armed force, UN conceded, the contingent is insignificant.  Its main job will be to supervise traffic on the important Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway.

But, as a symbol of what the UN is striving to be, the departure was considered a major event in the UN's history.

TEL AVIV, June 23.-(UP)
Foreign Minister Moshe Shertok said today that civil strife touched off by Irgun Zvai Leumi dissidents had plunged the fledging state into an "internal crisis the seriousness of which cannot be minimized."

The g(o)vernment bent every effort to stave off the threat of civil war.  It decided to demand that the Irgunists surrender their arms unconditionally.

The army of Israel clamped a curfew on Tel Aviv.  the chief of army operations announced that fighting was going on up to last night in various parts of the city.  It was particularly heavy in the waterfront area, from which civilians had been evacuated.

Irgunists and fellow Jews fought a bloody battle on the Tel Aviv beach yesterday when a 4,600 ton gun-running  tship(ship) was rammed aground and sought to land Irgunist troops an darms (and arms) against stiff army opposition.  The government has given no accounting of casualties.

Earlier the same ship, a former United States navy landing craft, had been driven off after trying to land arms at Natanya, 10 miles north of Tel Aviv.  An official statement said six Irgunists and two Israeli soldiers were killed there, and 14 Irgunists and three Israeli men were wounded.

TEL AVIV, Israel, June 22-(AP)
Thousands of Tel Aviv residents fled from the waterfront late today when a munitions-laden LST beached by rebel Irgun Zvai Leumi fighters threatened to explode after being set afire by Israeli army shelling.

The sudden fire, resulting from regular army mortar fire, threw the four-hour battle between Irgun and the army into strange confusion.

         Waterfront Deserted

All hotels and apartment houses along the Mediterranean waterfront, including headquarters of a United Nations truce team, were deserted within a few minutes.

Truckloads of unarmed Irgun fighters suddenly appeared on the city's main streets.  As two dozen crew members jumped off the LST, which carried 600 tons of munitions, both army troops and Irgun rebels joined in the mass exodus.

Just what has happened to Irgun's fight against the Israel government remained a mystery.  The fact that most of the Irgun fighters driving down crowded Allenby road away from the waterfront were unarmed was interpreted by some to mean that a deal had been made with the government to end the fighting that began early yesterday.

A lull in today's battle began in mid-afternoon when a wounded Irgun man was carried from the beach under a white flag.  It ended 90 minutes later when the regular army began shelling the LST.

RHODES, June 26-(UP)
The Palestine truce was jeopardized today by Egyptian violation, and Count Folke Bernadotte's work toward a lasting peace in the Holy Land suffered a severe setback.

Bernadotte acknowledged the gravity of the situation in a report to the United Nations, for which he is a mediator.  He described as a "serious incident" an Egyptian attack on a Jewish food convoy and on a UN observation plane.

He protested vigorously to the Egyptian government and asked for a full explanation.  Pending the formal reply, Cairo dispatches indicated the line Egypt would take.

Premier Mahmoud Norkrashy Pasha said informally there that the firing on the UN plane by an Egyptian fighter was "a mistake."  The Egyptian pilot, he said, thought the UN plant (plane) was an enemy.

Fifteen bullets penetrated the UN plane.  The pilot, Lt. Col. Maurice L. Martin of Bluefield, W. VA. one of the air force officers sent to aid Bernadotte in the truce work, was uninjured.

As for the Egyptian attack on the Jewish convoy, Nokrashy said, the government objected to the convoy and had advised the true (truce) commission to that effect Wednesday.

TEL AVIV, June 28.-(UP)
The Palestine truce hung in the balance today after the reported refusal of Arab league officers at Latrun to permit the passage of an (any) more food convoys to Jerusalem on grounds that enough food had been stored there.

United Nations observers called off the movement of convoys for 24 hours, during which a full account of food quantities involved will be supplied to the Legion.

Some Jewish quarters feared that the Legion had no intention of allowing any more food to reach Jerusalem, whatever the UN decides.

Egypt refused to rescind a ban on Jewish food convoys in the Negev, despite a charge by Count Folke Bernadotte, the UN mediator, that it violated the terms of the armistice.

UN observers yesterday went to the Arab triangle northeast of Tel Aviv where further violations of the truce were reported by Iraqi forces were reported..