Jewish forces in the Jerusalem area today pulsed two major Arab attacks and in at least one instance sent the guerrilla ##rces reeling back.
The major Arab defeat come at the Poale Mizrachi settlement of Neve Yaacob, five miles north of Jerusalem. The raid, led by Emil Ghoury, member of the Palestine Arab Higher Committee, Mufti henchman and newly-appointed military commander of the Jerusalem Arab forces, resulted in a number of casualties for the Arab forces including the death of one Briton and several Arab who led the attack in a captured Jewish armored car.
The armored, car opened-the attack on the settlement. With a few well-placed mortar shells the Jews blew up and burned the vehicle, killing four of its crew and founding the others. Then for several hours the Arabs kept charging the defense perimeter of the colony. Finally, Ghoury ordered the Arabs to retreat from the field.
The second attack took place simultaneously on the approaches to Hadassah hospital atop Mt. Scopus and the nearby Jewish quarters of Shimon Hazadik and Beth Israel. The Arabs used mortars and machine guns, but failed to penetrate Haganah defenses. Casualty figures for this action are not yet know. Last week the road to the hospital was the scene, of a massacre of 64 Jews, mostly medical personnel, by Arabs who ambushed an eleven-car convoy.
(At Lake Success today the Jewish Agency released the text of a cable which was sent to Secretary General Trygve Lie and Karel Lisicky, chairman, of the U.N. Palestine Commission by Chaim Salomon, president of the Jewish Community Council in Jerusalem, charging that British, military personnel failed to Intervene when Arabs attacked Jewish doctors and nurses in a convoy to the Hadassah Hospital and that the British prevented Haganah forces from coming to their rescue.The protect vas coupled with an appeal for action to prevent repetition of British sabotage of Jewish shelf-defense.)
The latest casualty lists released by the government revealed today that three British soldiers were killed and five wounded yesterday when the Irgun held up British ammunition train near Hadera. The Irgun claimed that the munitions were destined for the Arabs. Three Jews were reported killed in the battle. Thirty tons of ammunition were carried off by the attackers, estimated to number over150.
The largest food convoy–300 three and five-ton trucks–to reach Jerusalem from Tel Aviv since the recent Arab attempt to cut the vital supply highway entered this city yesterday. The government information office was evacuated following a Telephone warning that the building was about to be blown up. However, no explosives here found.
In Haifa yesterday the Arabs set fire to the Palestine Economic Corporation’s building in Haifa by exploding a grenade in front of it. In Safad Arabs attacked and occupied a Jewish technical school.
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