By April 23, 2008 Read More →

Truce in Palestine, Associated Press, San Francisco Chronicle, June 12, 1948.

Count Folke BernadotteEach Side Says Other Violates The Cease-Fire

Click here to view the original article.

By the Associated Press

A shaky truce prevailed in. Palestine Friday night, with the Jews and Arabs accusing each other of violations of the cease-fire.

The chief of operations of the Jewish high command Friday night said Arab forces had broken the truce on the northern, central and southern fronts. He warned that the army of Israel might yet strike back against any ground thus gained.

To this warning the Jewish chief of operations added another-

“The Damascus raid has shown that no Arab capital is beyond the range of our air force. No technical hindrance stands in our way if we are ordered to do the same again to two already bombed Arab capitals-or three.”

Ten other violations were alleged. These ranged all the way from complaints fighting had continued in some sectors for a few minutes after the deadline early yesterday to a Syrian protest that Jewish planes had made two post-truce attacks on Damascus.

BERNADOTTE

Count Folke Bernadotte, United Nations mediator, ordered U. N. observers to investigate complaints alleging four separate violations by Jews.

(Bernadotte said, according to United Press- “I always expected incidents like these would occur the first day of the truce.”)

Military men in Tel Aviv. the capital of Israel, hardly had expected the cease-fire to be absolute because of the normal difficulties of disengagement in operations which continued to the last minute.

The truce brought two major battles to a sputtering stop. One was at Isdud, 23 miles south of Tel Aviv. The other was at Latrun, key to the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv road.

Artillery and mortar fire continued in Jerusalem in the hours preceding the armistice. By last night, however, a truce prevailed in the Holy City.

DAVID MARCUS KILLED

(It was announced in New York that David Marcus, former U. S. colonel and World War II hero, was killed on the Jerusalem front Thursday night. Israel revealed that Marcus was supreme commander of Jewish forces in that sector. See page 2.

(Bernadotte announced, according to United Press, that his truce headquarters will be set up in Rhodes Saturday, while he flies to Amman, Trans-Jordan, and Jerusalem.

(Premier Tewfik Abul Huda of Trans-Jordan asserted in Amman that Bernadotte had authority from the U. N. to scrap any previous decisions or plans in attempting to negotiate a full settlement of the Palestine problem during the truce.

(If Bernadotte succeeded in getting Arabs and Jews together. Huda said, approval of the U. N. would be a mere formality.

(Arab governments will meet next week to discuss their plans in event of an attempt at a peace conference. Premier Riad Es-Solh of Lebanon said in Beirut.

(But King Abdullah of TransJordan and Premier Solh said specifically in statements that the Arabs would not agree to a Jewish state in Palestine or any other form of partition.)

Comments are closed.