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Arabs Lose 57 Men in Battle in Eastern Palestine; Suffer Greatest Setback of Conflict

February 18, 1948
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The Haganah today announced that 57 Arabs were killed and 30 wounded in yesterday’s battle at Tirat Zvi, on the eastern border of Palestine. The official British figures are 30 Arabs and one Jew killed, while the Arab Higher Committee claimed that 78 Jews had died in the battle, which ended in the most severe setback yet suffered by the Arabs since the outbreak of hostilities.

A British police station in the town of Beisan, in the same vicinity as Tirat Zvi, was the target of a 40-minute attack this morning, but no one was hurt. Later an armored car was fired upon in the same area, but again without any casualties. Both attacks are believed to be the work of Arabs.

Arab snipers wounded four British soldiers in Jerusalem today, while two Arabs were killed and two Britons injured in an explosion which wrecked a building in the city. The Haganah reported today that its members had killed five Arabs and wounded eight others yesterday in mopping up a series of clashes precipitated by Arabs in Haifa. For the second day in a row Arab Legionnaires encamped near the city fired on a Jewish bus and killed two persons and injured several others.

A Jew was shot dead in a Tel Aviv street today, allegedly by Britons in an armored police car. Last night the Stern Group sent a task force into the Arab village of Abu Kebir, on the Aviv-Jafta front, which killed a number of Arabs. The Sternists apparently withdrew from the village, a notorious base for raids on Tel Aviv and traffic to and from the Jewish city, without having lost any man.

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