The death of Ole Helge Bakke, a United Nations guard who was killed while on truce enforcement duties in Jerusalem, was blamed today on the Arabs in a report submitted to U.N. Secretary-General Trygve Lie by Dr. Ralph Banche, top aide to Palestine mediator Count Folke Bernadotte.
“An examination of bullet holes in the Jeep (that Bakke was driving to Hadassah Hospital),” the report stated, “repealed that the fire oust have come from the left front, namely, Arab positions. The jeep received approximately nine bullet holes in the rear seat and canopy,” the report added.
A cable from the mediator’s headquarters in Rhodes quoted Swedish Jerusalem observer Col. Nils Brunsson as stating that the Mt. Scopus area is now demilitarized and under United Nations supervision. The Swedish officer who is now at Rhodes also revealed that a new plan for briefing all U.N. observers In Rhodes before they assume their posts in Palestine is in operation.
Military observers from France, the U.S. and Belgium are conferring on Rhodes, the message said. Although ho assumed that with the Israeli capture of the city’s water pumping station at Ras el Ain, Jerusalem’s Jews should now be receiving sufficient water, Brunsson said he did not know if this were so. During the first four-week truce period, he disclosed, 20 U.N. convoys of approximately 100 trucks each entered Jerusalem with food, medical and other supplies.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
