Arab Ask U.N. Security Council to Return Cyprus Jews to Their Native Lands

The Aral Higher Committee today appealed to the U.N. Security Council not to permit the transfer of the 11,000 Jewish refugees now in Cyprus to Israel on the grounds that such a move “would enrich the Jews in manpower and fighting personnel” in Palestine. The appeal said that the Jews now in Cyprus “must be returned to their country of origin.”

The appeal was made as the Council prepared today to hear Israeli charges that the British were violating the Palestine truce by continuing to detain the displaced Jews on Cyprus “behind barbed wire fences nearly three months after the termination of the Palestine Mandate. Today’s session of the Council was also scheduled to discuss a message received from the U.N. truce commission regarding the difficulties involved in getting supplies to Jerusalem.

The Arab Higher Committee in its appeal claimed that there are now about 550,000 Arabs who have been displaced as a result of the war in Palestine. About 300,000 of them are at present in the neighboring Arab countries, while the remainder are in Palestine “penniless” and giving under crowded conditions in Arab villages in Palestine.

The appeal attributed the mass-exodus of the Arabs from their homes to “attacks and massacres carried on by Jews.” It said that the homes of the Arabs “are now occupied by the Jews” and claimed that the Jews looted and destroyed Arab property. It also complained that the Jews harvested the crops which the Arabs left behind them in their flight.

The Security Council today also received a memorandum from the Arab League which said the League learned “from authentic sources” that Jewish forces burned alive 28 Arab inhabitants of the village of Eltera, near Haifa, after capturing the village. The memorandum says that the league “has the names of 14 of the victims and also the name of an eye-witness,” but did not submit these to the Council.