Egyptians Seize Coastal Forts; Arabs Shell Jerusalem Old City, Associated Press, NY Herald Tribune, May 25, 1948.

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CAIRO, May 24.-Egyptian Army units captured several Jewish strongholds on Palestine’s southern coastal belt last night after a nine-hour battle, a Defense Ministry communique announced tonight.

The communique said 500 Jewish bodies were counted on the battlefield in the Deir Suneld region, between Tel Aviv and Gaza Deir Suneld is thirty-four miles southwest of Tel Aviv and seven miles northeast of Gaza.

The Egyptian flag was raised over the highest fortress in the region early today, the communique said.

One Jewish airplane was shot down white attempting to supply one of the strongholds, which were under attack, the Egyptian communique added.

The Jews were said to have suffered heavy casualties in killed and wounded and to have left behind great quantities of arms and ammunition.

Egyptian heavy bombers with fighter escort were reported to have raided oil dumps, installations and a power station northeast of Tel Aviv harbor. Direct hits were scored and fires were observed, the communique said.

Egyptian aircraft also bombed and set afire Jewish installations near Ramatayim, nine miles northeast of Tel Aviv, and a Zionist training camp southeast of the city.

Jerusalem Bombarded

WITH THE ARAB LEGION IN THE OLD CITY, JERUSALEM. May 24 (AP).-Arab Legionnaires covered the Jewish quarter of the Old city with artillery and machine-gun fire today while Arab dynamites blew up a concrete pillbox.

Jewish mortars went into action against Legion infantrymen on the southern wall. The hard-pressed Jewish garrison fired five smoke rockets. It was the first time the Israeli troops had signaled in this manner.

Except under severe Arab pressure, the Jewish fire now is weak. Apparently the Israeli soldiers are on a starvation ammunition ration.

The artillery barrage by the Trans-Jordan Arab Legion lasted fifteen minutes, and the deluge of automatic weapons fire seemed endless. The pillbox which the demolition squad blasted lay across the Legion’s attack route to the Hurva (Beit Yaakov) Synagogue, fifty yards away.

Arab demolition squads were working steadily at the job of reducing the Jewish quarter of the Old City to rubble.

“We don’t want to lose men,” a Legion field officer said. “The Jews are in a trap. We are literally blasting them out.”

The Arab guns also raked Jewish positions in southern districts of modern Jerusalem-Mckof Hayim, Talpioth, Upper Bakaa and Lower Bakaa. The firing there was designed to open the way for an advance by Legion troops together with Egyptian volunteers and Palestinian irregulars.

In the northern part of the new city. Arab shells set afire Jewish targets near the Russian cathedral. The battered Notre-Dame hospice was reported in Arab hands except for the position held by an estimated forty Israeli soldiers in the basement of one wing.

The Arab advance northwest of the walled city’s New Gate still was meeting determined opposition in Allenby Square.

The Arab tactics, as the battle for Jerusalem neared the end of its first week, seemed to be based on a desire to avoid wasting the infantry man power and to disorganize the Jewish defenses by heavy, widespread and continuous shelling, while depending on a food-and-water blockade-perhaps the most potent weapon of all.

A responsible Arab source said King Abdullah of Trans-Jordan had been notified of the surrender terms for the Israeli units at Hadassah Hospital and the Hebrew University on Mount Scopus

The informant said King Abdullah had agreed to deliver all Jewish occupants of the two institutions to the International Red Cross provided all Jewish weapons there were turned over to the Arab Legion. Earlier terms had required surrender of armed Jews to the Legion as prisoners of war.

Jews Claim Jordan Valley

TEL AVIV, May 24 (AP).-The Israeli Army said tonight that it had driven Arab forces out of the entire Jordan Valley. The valley of the famous biblical river is south of the Sea of Galilee along the Palestine-Trans-Jordan frontier.

A communique reported recapture of the Shaar Hagolan and Massada settlements and said the whole of the Samakh area is now in Jewish hands. Samakh is at the southern tip of the Sea of Galilee.

A few heavy bombs fell in the northern district of Tel Aviv today when twin-engine bombers raided this all-Jewish coastal city.

A Haganah communique said the Arab Legion made no advance this morning in Jerusalem’s Old City and the new city’s Sheikh Jarrah quarter.

It said half of the Jewish settlement of Ramat Rehel, south of Jerusalem, had been destroyed as a result of forty-eight hours of fighting.

The Jewish Air Force bombed enemy military objectives at El Majdal, north of Gaza, the communique said. It added that a Jewish unit had broken through Arab forces into the besieged Jewish settlement of Yad Mordcai, in the Negev desert area. It brought supplies for the settlers and gave first aid to the wounded.

Haganah said Arab planes attacked the Jewish settlement of Kinneret Sunday and that one plane was shot down, falling into Trans-Jordan territory.