THE Bunche REPORT- PALESTINE 1944-1948
A Summary of Zionist Terrorism in the Near East — 1944-1948
Prepared for Dr. Ralph J. Bunche, UN Mediator for Palestine
Foreward: In view of the tragic assassination of Count Folke Bernadotte by identified Jewish terrorists on September 17 of this year, the following report has been prepared for the use of Dr. Bunche, Count Bernadotte’s immediate replacement.
The report is a compilation of all identified terrorist attacks on British, American and Arab individuals and entities from the assassination of the British Resident Minister in the Middle East on November 6, 1944 by members of the terrorist Jewish Stern gang to the assassination of Count Bernadotte on September 17, 1948 by members of this same gang of fanatics.
This information is compiled from reports of the US Department of State, the British Foreign Office and various American and British press services.
New York, October 1, 1948
Chronology
1944
1
November 6, 1944, Cairo. Lord Moyne, British Resident Minister in the Middle East, and his driver were assassinated outside the minister’s Cairo residence. Two murderers were involved. One was injured, and both were immediately arrested.1945
2
January 10, 1945, Cairo. The British supreme military court today put on trial Eliahu Bet-Tsours from Tel Aviv and Eliahu Hakim of Haifa, both admitted members of the Jewish terrorist Stern gang.
3
January 18, 1945, Cairo. The British supreme military court sentenced the murderers of Lord Moyne to death. Both killers admitted their act and also admitted their membership in the Stern gang which they said ordered the killings as a warning to the British not to interfere with future Jewish immigration to Jerusalem.
4
March 22, 1945, Cairo. The two convicted Jewish Stern gang terrorists who murdered Lord Moyne and his driver were hanged today in the Cairo prison British authorities announced.1946
5
January 12, 1946, Palestine. A train was derailed by Jewish terrorists at Hadera near Haifa by a bomb and robbed of £35,000 in cash. Two British police officials were injured.
6
January 18, 1946, Haifa. Over 900 Jewish immigrants were captured off Haifa by the British Royal Navy.
7
January 19, 1946, Jerusalem. Jewish terrorists destroyed a power station and a portion of the Central Jerusalem prison by explosives. Two persons were killed by police.
8
January 22, 1946, Palestine. Jewish terrorists launched an attack against the British-controlled Givat Olga Coast Guard Station located between Tel Aviv and Haifa. Ten persons were injured and one was killed. Captured papers indicated that the purpose of this raid was to take revenge on the British for their seizure of the refugee ship on January 18. British military authorities in Jerusalem questioned 3,000 Jews and held 148 in custody.
9
April 25, 1946, Palestine. Jewish terrorists attacked a British installation near Tel Aviv. This group, which contained a number of young girls, had as its goal the capture of British weapons. British authorities rounded up 1,200 suspects.
10
June 24, 1946, Palestine. The Irgun radio “Fighting Zion” warns that three kidnapped British officers are held as hostages for two Irgun members, Josef Simkohn and Isaac Ashbel facing execution as well as 31 Irgun members facing trial.
11
June 27, 1946, Palestine. Thirty Irgun members are sentenced by a British military court to 15 years in prison. One, Benjamin Kaplan was sentenced to life for carrying a firearm.
12
June 29, 1946, Palestine. British military units and police raided Jewish settlements throughout Palestine searching for the leaders of Haganah, a leading Jewish terrorist agency. The Jewish Agency for Palestine was occupied and four top officials arrested. At the end of June, 1946 2,000 were arrested and four Jews and one British soldier were killed.
13
July 1, 1946, Palestine. British officials announced the discovery of a large arms dump hidden underground at Meshak Yagur. 2,659 men and 59 women were detained for the three day operation in which 27 settlements were searched. Four were killed and 80 were injured.
14
July 3, 1946, Palestine. Palestine High Commissioner, Lt. General Sir Alan Cunningham commuted to life imprisonment the death sentences of Josef Simkohn and Isaac Ashbel, Irgun members.
15
July 4, 1946, Tel Aviv. British officers, Captains K. Spencer, C. Warburton and A. Taylor who had been kidnapped by the Irgun on June 18 and held as hostages for the lives of Simkohn and Ashbel, were released in Tel Aviv unharmed. At this time, Irgun issued a declaration of war against the British claiming that they had no alternative but to fight.
16
July 22, 1946, Jerusalem. The west wing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem which housed British Military Headquarters and other governmental offices was destroyed at 12:57 PM by explosives planted in the cellar by members of the Irgun terrorist gang. By the 26 of July the casualties were 76 persons killed, 46 injured and 29 still missing in the rubble. The dead included many British, Arabs and Jews.
17
July 23, 1946, Jerusalem. The Irgun Zvai Leumi terrorist group takes responsibility for the King David bombing but blames the British, calling them “tyrants.”
18
July 24, 1946, London. The British government released a White Paper that accuses the Haganah, Irgun and Stern gangs of “a planned movement of sabotage and violence” under the direction of the Jewish Agency and asserts that the June 29 arrest of Zionist leaders was the cause of the bombing.
19
July 28, 1946, Jerusalem. The British Palestine Commander, Lt. General Sir Evelyn Barker, banned fraternization of British troops with Palestine Jews whom he stated “cannot be absolved of responsibility for terroristic acts.” The order states that this will punish “the race ... by striking at their pockets and showing our contempt for them.”
20
July 29, 1946, Tel Aviv. Police in Tel Aviv raided a workshop making bombs.
21
July 30, 1946, Tel Aviv. Tel Aviv is placed under a 22-hour-a-day curfew as 20,000 British troops began a house-to-house sweep for terrorists. The city is sealed off from the rest of Jerusalem and troops are ordered to shoot to kill any curfew violators.
22
July 31, 1946, Tel Aviv. A large cache of weapons, extensive counterfeiting equipment and $1,000,000 in counterfeit Government bonds were discovered in Tel Aviv’s largest synagogue.
23
July 31, 1946, Haifa. Two ships have arrived at Haifa with a total of 3,200 illegal Jewish immigrants.
24
August 2, 1946, Tel Aviv. British military authorities ended the curfew in Tel Aviv after detaining 500 persons for further questioning. A second arms dump was discovered on July 1 in a school building.
25
August 2, 1946, Jerusalem. The Palestine Government disclosed that 91 persons were killed and 45 injured in the King David bombing.
26
August 2, 1946, Jerusalem. Jerusalem police announced the arrest of Itzhak Yesternitsky, second man in the Stern gang.
27
August 12, 1946, London. The British Government announced that it will allow no more unscheduled immigration into Palestine and that those seeking entry into that country will be sent to Cyprus and other areas under detention. Declaring that such immigration threatens a civil war with the Arab population, it charges a “minority of Zionist extremists” with attempting to force an unacceptable solution of the Palestine problem.
28
August 12, 1946, Haifa. Two ships carrying a total of 1,300 Jewish refugees arrived at Haifa. The port area was isolated on August 11 by British military and naval units. The first deportation ship sailed for Cyprus with 500 Jews on board.
29
August 13, 1946, Haifa. Three Jews were killed and seven wounded when British troops were compelled to fire on a crowd of about 1,000 persons trying to break into the port area of Haifa. Two Royal Navy ships with 1,300 illegal Jewish immigrants on board sailed for Cyprus. Another ship with 600 illegal immigrants was captured and confined in the Haifa harbor.
30
August 26, 1946, Palestine. British military units searched the coastal villages of Casera and Sadoth Yam for three Jews who bombed the transport “Empire Rival” last week. Eighty-five persons, including the entire male population of one of the villages were sent to the Rafa detention center.
31
August 27, 1946, Palestine. During the searches conducted on August 26, an explosive limpet mine similar to the one used on the “Empire Rival” was found.
32
August 29, 1946, Jerusalem. The British Government announced the commutation to life imprisonment of the death sentences imposed on 18 Jewish youths convicted of bombing the Haifa railroad shops.
33
August 30, 1946, Palestine. British military units discovered arms and munitions dumps in the Jewish farming villages of Dorot and Ruhama.
34
September 8, 1946, Palestine. Zionist terrorists cut the Palestine railroad in 50 places.
35
September 9, 1946, Tel Aviv. Two British officers were killed in an explosion in a public building.
36
September 9, 1946, Haifa. An Arab constable was killed.
37
September 10, 1946, Palestine. British troops imposed a curfew and arrested 101 Jews and wounded two in a search for saboteurs in Tel Aviv and neighboring Ramat Gan. Irgun terrorist groups took the action against the railways on September 8, as a protest.
38
September 14, 1946, Jaffa. Jewish terrorists robbed three banks in Jaffa and Tel Aviv, killing three Arabs. Thirty-six Jews were arrested.
39
September 15, 1946, Tel Aviv. Jewish terrorists attacked a police station on the coast near Tel Aviv but were driven off by gunfire.
40
October 2, 1946, Tel Aviv. British military units and police seized 50 Jews in a Tel Aviv cafe after a Jewish home was blown up. This home belonged to a Jewish woman who had refused to pay extortion money to the Irgun terrorist gang.
41
October 6, 1946, Jerusalem. An RAF man was killed by gunfire.
42
October 8, 1946, Jerusalem. Two British soldiers were killed when their truck detonated a land mine outside Jerusalem. A leading Arab figure was wounded in a similar mine explosion in Jerusalem and more road mines were found near Government House.
43
October 31, 1946, Rome. The British Embassy in Rome was damaged by a bomb, believed to have been planted by Jewish terrorists.
44
November 3, 1946, Palestine. Two Jews and two Arabs were killed in clashes between Arabs and a group of Jews attempting to establish a settlement at Lake Hula in northern Palestine.
45
November 4, 1946, Rome. Italian authorities released a letter in which the Jewish terrorist gang Irgun took credit for the October 31 embassy bombing.
46
November 5, 1946, Palestine. British authorities released the following eight Jewish Agency leaders from the Latrun concentration camp where they had been held since June 29: Moshe Shertok, Dr. Issac Greenbaum, Dr. Bernard Joseph, David Remiz, David Hacohen, David Shingarevsky, Joseph Shoffman and Mordecai Shatter. A total of 2,550 Haganah suspects have also been released as well as 779 Jews arrested in the wake of the King David bombing.
47
November 7, 1946, Palestine. Railroad traffic was suspended for 24 hours throughout Palestine following a fourth Irgun attack on railway facilities in two days.
48
November 9 through November 13, 1946, Palestine. Nineteen persons, eleven British soldiers and policemen and eight Arab constables, were killed in Palestine during this period as Jewish terrorists, using land mines and suitcase bombs, increased their attacks on railroad stations, trains and even streetcars.
49
November 14, 1946, London. The Board of Deputies of British Jews condemned Jewish terrorist groups who threatened to export their terrorism to England.
50
November 18, 1946, Tel Aviv. Police in Tel Aviv attacked Jews, assaulting many and firing into houses. Twenty Jews were injured in fights with British troops following the death on November 17 of three policemen and an RAF sergeant in a land mine explosion.
51
November 20, 1946, Jerusalem. Five persons were injured when a bomb exploded in the Jerusalem tax office.
52
December 2 through December 5, 1946, Palestine. Ten persons, including six British soldiers, were killed in bomb and land-mine explosions.
53
December 3, 1946, Jerusalem. A member of the Stern gang was killed in an aborted hold-up attempt.
54
December 26, 1946, Palestine. Armed Jewish terrorists raided two diamond factories in Nathanya and Tel Aviv and escaped with nearly $107,000 in diamonds, cash and bonds. These raids signaled an end to a two-week truce during the World Zionist Congress.1947
55
January 1, 1947, Jerusalem. Dov Gruner was sentenced to hang by a British military court for taking part in a raid on the Ramat Gan police headquarters in April of 1946.
56
January 2, 1947, Palestine. A wave of terror swept Palestine as Jewish terrorists staged bombings and machine gun attacks in five cities. Casualties were low. Homemade flamethrowers were used in several cases. Pamphlets seized warned that the Irgun had again declared war against the British and Arabs of Palestine.
57
January 4, 1947, Jerusalem. British soldiers have been ordered to wear sidearms at all times and were forbidden to enter any cafe or restaurant.
58
January 5, 1947, Egypt. Eleven British troops were injured in a hand grenade attack on a train carrying troops to Palestine. The attack took place near Benha, 25 miles from Cairo.
59
January 8, 1947, Palestine. British police arrested 32 persons suspected of being members of the Irgun terrorist gang’s “Black Squad” in raids on Rishon-el Zion and Rehoboth.
60
January 12, 1947, Haifa. A single terrorist drove a truck filled with high explosives into the central police station and exploded it, killing two British policemen and two Arab constables and injuring 140 others. The terrorist escaped. This action ended a 10-day lull in the violence and the Stern gang took the credit for it.
61
January 13, 1947, Haifa. British soldiers and police screened 872 persons in Haifa and detained 10 for further questioning as Arabs and Jews both condemned the bombing.
62
January 14, 1947, Jerusalem. Yehudi Katz is sentenced to life in prison by a Jerusalem court for robbing a bank in Jaffa in September of 1946 to obtain funds for the terrorists.
63
January 21, 1947, London. Dr. Emmanuel Neumann, vice president fo the Zionist Organization of America, declared U.S. Zionists would spend “millions” to finance illegal immigration of Jews to Palestine. A Haganah spokesman in Paris claimed that 211,878 Jews entered Palestine illegally during the past 15 months.
64
January 22, 1947, Palestine. Sir Harry Gurney, Chief Secretary, stated that the British administration was taxing Palestine $2,400,000 to pay for sabotage by the terrorists.
65
January 22, 1947, London. Colonial Secretary Arthur Creech Jones informed the House of Commons 73 British subjects were murdered by Palestine terrorists in 1946 and “no culprits have been convicted.”
66
January 27, 1947, London. Britain’s conference on Palestine, boycotted by the Jews, reconvened. Jamal el Husseini, Palestine Arab leader, declared that the Arab world was unalterably opposed to partition as a solution to the problem. The session then adjourned.
67
January 29, 1947, London. It was officially announced that the British Cabinet decided to partition Palestine.
68
January 29, 1947, Jerusalem. Irgun forces released former Maj. H. Collins, a British banker, who they kidnapped on January 26 from his home. He had been badly beaten. On January 28, the Irgun released Judge Ralph Windham who had been kidnapped in Tel Aviv on January 27 while trying a case. These men had been taken as hostages for Dov Bela Gruner, an Irgun member under death sentence for terrorism. The British High Commissioner, Lt. Gen. Sir Alan Cunningham, had threatened martial law unless the two men were returned unharmed.
69
January 31, 1947, Jerusalem. General Cunningham ordered the wives and children of all British civilians to leave Palestine at once. About 2,000 are involved. This order did not apply to the 5,000 Americans in Palestine.
70
February 3, 1947, Jerusalem. The Palestine Government issued a 7-day ultimatum to the Jewish Agency demanding that it state “categorically and at once” whether it and the supreme Jewish Council in Palestine will call on the Jewish community by February 10 for “cooperation with the police and armed forces in bringing to justice the members of the terrorist groups.”
This request was publicly rejected by Mrs. Goldie Meyerson, head of the Jewish Agency’s political department.
71
February 4, 1947, Jerusalem. British District Commissioner James Pollock disclosed a plan for military occupation of three sectors of Jerusalem and orders nearly 1,000 Jews to evacuate the Rehavia, Schneler and German quarters by noon, February 6.
72
February 5, 1947, Jerusalem. The Vaad Leumi rejected the British ultimatum while the Irgun passed out leaflets that it was prepared to fight to the death against the British authority.
The first 700 of some 1,500 British women and children ordered to evacuate Palestine leave by plane and train for Egypt. British authorities, preparing for military action, order other families from sections of Tel Aviv and Haifa which will be turned into fortified military areas.
73
February 9, 1947, Haifa. British troops removed 650 illegal Jewish immigrants from the schooner “Negev” at Haifa and after a struggle forced them aboard the ferry “Emperor Haywood” for deportation to Cyprus.
74
February 14, 1947, Jerusalem. The British administration revealed that Lt. Gen. Sir Evelyn Barker, retiring British commander in Palestine, had confirrmed the death sentences of three Irgun members on February 12 before leaving for England. The three men, Dov Ben Rosenbaum, Eliezer Ben Kashani and Mordecai Ben Alhachi, had been sentenced on February 10 to be hanged for carrying firearms. A fourth, Haim Gorovetzky, received a life sentence because of his youth. Lt. Gen. G. MacMillan arrived in Jerusalem on February 13 to succeed Gen. Barker.
75
February 15, 1947, Palestine. The Sabbath was the setting for sporadic outbreaks of violence which included the murder of an Arab in Jaffa and of a Jew in Bne Brok, the kidnaping of a Jew in Peta Tikvah and the burning of a Jewish club in Haifa.
76
March 9, 1947, Hadera. A British army camp was attacked.
77
March 10, 1947, Haifa. A Jew, suspected of being an informer, was murdered by Jewish terrorists.
78
March 12, 1947, Jerusalem. The British Army pay corps was dynamited in Jerusalem and one soldier killed.
79
March 12, 1947, Palestine. British military units captured most of the 800 Jews whose motor ship “Susanna” ran the British blockade and was beached north of Gaza on this date. A British naval escort brought the “Ben Hecht,” the Hebrew Committee of National Liberation’s first known immigrant ship, into Haifa, and its 599 passengers were shipped to Cyprus. The British arrested the crew, which included 18 U.S. seamen.
80
March 13, 1947, Jerusalem. British authorities announced 78 arrests as a result of unofficial Jewish cooperation, but two railroads were attacked, resulting in two deaths, and eight armed men robbed a Tel Aviv bank of $65,000.
81
March 14, 1947, Palestine. Jewish terrorists blew up part of an oil pipeline in Haife and a section of the rail line near Beer Yakov.
82
March 16, 1947, Jerusalem. The Jewish Agency building was bombed.
83
March 17, 1947, Jerusalem. British authorities ended martial law which had kept 300,000 Jews under house arrest for 16 days and tied up most economic activity.
84
March 17, 1947, Palestine. A military court sentenced Moshe Barazani to be hanged for possessing a hand grenade.
85
March 18, 1947, Palestine. Terrorist leaflets admitted the murder of Michael Shnell on Mount Carmel as an informer.
86
March 22, 1947, Palestine. British officials announced the arrest of five known terrorists and the discovery near Petah Tikvah of the body of Leon Meshiah, a Jew presumably slain as a suspected informer.
87
March 26, 1947, London. Britain’s Privy Council rejected the appeal of the death sentence against Dov Bela Gruner.
88
March 28, 1947, Haifa. The Irgun blew up the Iraq Petroleum Co. pipeline in Haifa.
89
March 29, 1947, Palestine. A British army officer was murdered by Jewish terrorists when they ambushed a party of horsemen near the Ramle camp. A raid by terrorists on a Tel Aviv bank yielded $109,000.
90
March 30, 1947, Palestine. Units of the British Royal Navy, answering an SOS, took the disabled “Moledeth” with 1,600 illegal Jewish refugees on board under tow some 50 miles outside Palestinian waters.
91
March 30, 1947, Tel Aviv. The Stern gang killed the wife of a British soldier.
92
March 31, 1947, Haifa. Jewish terrorists dynamited the British-owned Shell-Mex oil tanks in Haifa, starting a fire that destroyed a quarter-mile of the waterfront. The damage was set at more than $1,000,000, and the British government in Palestine has stated that the Jewish community will have to pay for it.
93
April 2, 1947, Cyprus. The “Ocean Vigour” was damaged by a bomb in Famagusta Harbor, Cyprus. The Haganah admitted the bombing.
94
April 2, 1947, Jerusalem. A court in Jerusalem sentenced Daniel Azulai and Meyer Feinstein, members of the Irgun terrorist gang, to death for the October 30 attack on the Jerusalem railroad station. The Palestine Supreme Court admitted an appeal of Dov Bela Gruner’s death sentence.
95
April 3, 1947. The transport “Empire Rival” was damaged by a time bomb while en route from Haifa to Port Said in Egypt.
96
April 7, 1947, Jerusalem. The High Court denied a new appeal against the death sentence of Dov Bela Gruner, and a British patrol killed Moshe Cohen.
97
April 8, 1947, Jerusalem. Jewish terrorists killed a British constable in revenge for the Cohen death.
98
April 9, 1947, Palestine. The Palestine Government abandoned “statutory martial law” in the face of unfavorable publicity but granted itself military dictatorship powers in “controlled areas” it may impose.
99
April 10, 1947, London. The British Government requested France and Italy to prevent Jews from embarking for Palestine.
100
April 11, 1947, Jerusalem. Asher Eskovitch, a Jew, was beaten to death by Moslems when he entered the forbidden Mosque of Omar.
101
April 13, 1947, Jerusalem. Guella Cohen, Stern gang illegal broadcaster, escaped from a British military hospital.
102
April 14, 1947, Tel Aviv. A British naval unit boarded the refugee ship “Guardian” and seized it along with 2,700 passengers after a gun battle in which two immigrants were killed and 14 wounded.
103
April 16, 1947, Haifa. In spite of threats of reprisal from the Irgun, the British hanged Dov Bela Gruner and three other Irgun members at Acre Prison on Haifa Bay. Jewish communities were kept under strict curfew for several hours. Soon after the deaths were announced, a time bomb was found in the Colonial Office in London, but was defused.
104
April 17, 1947, Palestine. Lt. Gen. G. MacMillan confirmed death sentences for two more convicted terrorists, Meier Ben Feinstein and Moshe Ben Barazani, but reduced Daniel Azulai’s sentence to life imprisonment.
105
April 18, 1947, Palestine. Irgun’s reprisals for the Gruner execution were an attack on a field dressing station near Nethanaya where one sentry was killed, an attack on an armored car in Tel Aviv where one bystander was killed and harmless shots at British troops in Haifa.
106
April 19, 1947, Haifa. British naval units exploded depth charges in Haifa harbor to prevent an underwater assault by Jewish “frogmen” on three British deportation vessels that took the “Guardian’s” passengers to Cyprus.
107
April 20, 1947, Tel Aviv. A seies of bombings by Jewish terrorists in retaliation for the hanging of convicted terrorist Gruner injured 12 British soldiers.
108
April 21, 1947, Jerusalem. Meier Feinstein and Moshe Barazani, condemned terrorists, killed themselves in prison a few hours before they were scheduled to be hanged. They blew themselves up with bombs smuggled to them in hollowed-out oranges.
109
April 22, 1947, Palestine. A troop train arriving from Cairo was bombed outside Rehovoth with five soldiers and three civilians killed and 39 persons injured.
110
April 23, 1947, London. The British First Lord of the Admiralty, Viscount Hall, defended the Labor Government’s policy in Palestine and he acknowledged in the House of Lords that Britain would not “carry out a policy of which it did not approve” despite any UN action. He blamed contributions from American Jews to the Palestine terrorists as aiding terrorism there and cited the toll since August 1, 1945: 113 killed, 249 wounded, 168 Jews convicted, 28 sentenced to death, four executed, 33 terrorists slain in battles. Viscount Samuel urged increased immigration.
111
April 23, 1947, Palestine. The Irgun proclaimed its own “military courts” to “try” British troops and policemen who resisted them.
112
April 23, 1947, Palestine. Lt. General Sir Alan Cunningham, Palestine High Commander flew to Egypt and requested Lt. General Sir Miles Dempsey, Middle-East land-force commander, for more troops to be sent to Palestine.
113
April 25, 1947, Tel Aviv. A Stern gang squad drove a stolen post office truck loaded with explosives into the Sarona police compound and detonated it, killing five British policemen.
114
April 26, 1947, Haifa. The murder of Deputy Police Superintendant A. Conquest climaxed a week of bloodshed.
115
May 4, 1947, Acre. The walls of Acre prison were blasted open by an Irgun bomb squad and 251 Jewish and Arab prisoners escaped after a gun battle in which 15 Jews and 1 Arab were killed, 32 (including six British guards) were injured and 23 escapists were recaptured. The Palestine Government promised no extra punishment if the 189 escapees still at large will surrender.
116
May 6, 1947, Jerusalem. Former British Commando Sgt. Dov Bernard Cohen, head of the Acre bomb squad, was fatally wounded in the attack.
117
May 4, 1947, New York. The Political Action Committee for Palestine ran a series of advertisements in New York newspapers seeking funds to buy parachutes for young European Jews planning to crash the Palestine immigration barrier by air.
118
May 8, 1947, Tel Aviv. A Jew was ambushed and shot to death by an Arab group near Tel Aviv, and three Jewish-owned Tel Aviv shops whose owners refused to contribute money to Jewish terrorist groups were burned down.
119
May 12, 1947, Jerusalem. Jewish terrorists killed two British policemen.
120
May 12, 1947, Jerusalem. The British authorities announced that 312 Jewish political prisoners were held in Kenya, East Africa, 247 in Latrun and 34 in Bethlehem, Palestine.
121
May 15, 1947. The Stern gang killed two British lieutenants and injured seven other persons with two derailments and three bridge demolitions.
122
May 16, 1947, Palestine. On the fifth day of another terrorist drive, Haifa Assistant Police Superintendant, Robert Schindler, a German Jew, was murdered by the Stern gang, and a British constable was killed on the Mt. Carmel-Haifa road near Jerusalem.
123
May 17, 1947, Haifa. The 1,200-ton Haganah freighter “Trade Winds” was seized by the Royal Navy off the Lebanon coast and escorted into Haifa, and over 1,000 illegal immigrants were disembarked pending transfer to Cyprus.
124
May 19, 1947, London. The British government protested to the United States government against American fund-raising drives for Palestine terrorist groups. The complaint referred to a “Letter to the Terrorists of Palestine” by playwright Ben Hecht, American League for a Free Palestine co-chairman, first published in the New York “Post” on May 15. The ad said, “We are out to raise millions for you.”
125
May 22, 1947, Palestine. Arabs attacked a Jewish labor camp in southern Palestine, retaliating for a Haganah raid on the Arabs near Tel Aviv May 20. Some 40,000 Arab and Jewish workers united the same day in a one-day strike against all establishments operated by the British War Ministry.
126
May 23, 1947, Palestine. A British naval party boarded the immigrant ship “Mordei Haghettoath” off South Palestine and took control of its 1,500 passengers. Two British soldiers were convicted in Jerusalem of abandoning a jeep and army mail under a terrorist attack.
127
May 27, 1947, Germany. Jewish underground migration officials in Frankfurt-am-Main declared they hoped to transport 1,000,000 Jews from Europe to Palestine, 30,000 of them this summer. The Costa Rican ship “Colony Trader” has been detained at Gibraltar under suspicion of its use for smuggling illegal immigrants into Palestine. London is investigating reports that non-Jewish Poles and Slavs in DP camps are being recruited for the Palestine army. Other investigations are being conducted into persistent reports that Soviet Russia has been supplying technical advisors to the Jewish terrorist groups.
128
May 28, 1947, Syria. Fawzi el-Kawukji, who spent the war years in Germany after leading the 1936-39 Arab revolt in Palestine, told reporters in Damascus that an unfavorable decision by the UN inquiry group would be the signal for war against the Jews in Palestine. “We must prove that in case” of an Anglo-American war with Russia, “we can be more dangerous or useful to them than the Jews,” he added.
129
May 28, 1947, Haifa. Jewish terrorists blew up a water main and a shed in the Haifa oil dock areas and made three attacks on railway lines in the Lydda and Haifa areas.
130
May 31, 1947, Haifa. The Haganah ship “Yehuda Halevy” arrived under British naval escort with 399 illegal Jewish immigrants, the first from Arab territories. They were immediately transshipped to Cyprus.
131
June 4, 1947, London. The terrorist Jewish Stern gang sent letter bombs to high British governmental officials. Eight letter bombs containing powdered gelignite explosive were discovered in London. Recipients included Ernest Bevan, Anthony Eden, Prime Minister Attlee and Winston Churchill.
132
June 5, 1947, Washington. President Truman asked all persons in the U.S. to refrain from helping Palestine terrorists. The American Jewish Committee and Jewish Labor Committee condemned Ben Hecht’s campaign for Palestine terrorist funds.
133
June 5, 1947, Tel Aviv. Jewish terrorist mines wrecked two trains near Tel Aviv and Haifa and the Athlit railroad station but without casualties.
134
June 6, 1947, London. Scotland Yard official now acknowledge that a total of 20 letter bombs have been found.
135
June 6, 1947, New York. Secretary General of the UN, Trygve Lie has forwarded a request to all countries a request by the British that they guard their frontiers against departure of illegal immigrants bound for Palestine.
136
June 18, 1947, Tel Aviv. Haganah disclosed that one of its men was killed by a booby trap which foiled an Irgun plot to blow up British Military Headquarters in Tel Aviv.
137
June 18, 1947, Jerusalem. Major Roy Farran, held in connection with the disappearance of a 16-year-old Jew, managed to escape from custody in the army barracks in Jerusalem.
138
June 28, 1947, Palestine. The terrorist Stern gang opened fire on British soldiers waiting in a line outside a Tel Aviv theater, killing three and wounding two. Another Briton is killed and several wounded in a Haifa hotel. This action was claimed by Jewish terrorists to be in retaliation for British brutality and the alleged slaying of a missing 16 year old Jew, Alexander Rubowitz while he was being held in an Army barracks on May 6.
139
June 6, 1947, New York. The UN Committee votes 9-0 to condemn the acts of terrorism as “flagrant disregard” of the UN appeal for an interim truce as Stern terrorists wounded four more British soldiers on a beach at Herzlia. Major Roy Alexander Farran surrendered voluntarily after his escape from custody in Jerusalem on June 19. He had been arrested in connection with the Rubowitz case.
140
June 30, 1947, Jerusalem. The Palestine government permitted oil companies to raise prices of benzine nearly 10% to pay for $1 million damage suffered when Jewish terrorists blew up oil installations at Haifa on March 31.
141
July 1, 1947, Jerusalem. The British Government rejected the UN Commission’s move to halt the execution of three Irgun members convicted of terrorism and also said that the UN Assembly truce resolution of May 15 had no bearing on “the normal processes of the administration of justice” in Palestine.
142
July 2, 1947, Haifa. Irgun members robbed a Haifa bank of $3,200 while both the Stern gang and the Irgun warned the British that their “provocative” acts in Palestine must end before a truce can be effected. The Guatemalan and Czech members of the UN Commission visited two Jewish convicts in Acre Prison. In Pretoria, South Africa, Prime Minister Smuts, who was a party to the Balfour Declaration, said “the promise of a national home in Palestine never meant the whole of Palestine.” He favored partition into Arab and Jewish states.
143
July 12, 1947, Jerusalem. Dr. Arieh Altman, president of the United Zionist Revisionists, told a party rally in Jerusalem that the Revisionists would settle for nothing less than an unpartitioned free Jewish state in Palestine and Trans-Jordan. Irgun announced in Jerusalem that two British sergeants kidnaped in Nathanaya are being held in Tel Aviv and have been sentenced to death by Irgun court-martial.
144
July 14, 1947, Nathanya. The British imposed martial law and placed the 15,000 inhabitants of Nathanya under house arrest. They made 68 arrests and sentenced 21 persons to 6 months each in the Latrun detention camp.
145
July 17, 1947, Nathanya. The Irgun in five mine operations against military traffic to and from Nathanya killed one Briton and injured 16.
146
July 17, 1947, Nathanya. Mines killed a second Briton and injured seven.
147
July 18, 1947, Haifa. The American-manned Haganah refugee ship “Exodus 1947” (formerly the “President Warfield”) was escorted into Haifa by British naval units after a battle in which the American first mate, William Bernstein and two immigrants were killed and more than 30 injured.
The blockade runner itself was badly damaged. The remainder of the 4,554 passengers, the largest group of illegal immigrants to sail for Palestine in a single ship, were put aboard British prison ships for removal to Cyprus. The American captain, Bernard Marks, and his crew were arrested. The ship sailed from France.
148
July 19, 1947, Haifa. Rioting, quickly suppressed, broke out among the passengers of the “Exodus 1947” when they learned they were to be returned to France.
149
July 19, 1947, Jerusalem. The Palestine Government charges that a Jewish “campaign of lawlessness, murder and sabotage” has cost 70 lives and $6 million in damage since 1940.
150
July 21, 1947, Jerusalem. Before officially admitting that 4,529 passengers of the “Exodus 1947” who had been transferred to three British ships, were being sent not to Cyprus but back to France, the Palestine Government took the precaution of first placing Jerusalem’s 90,000 Jews undr nightly house arrest.
151
July 23, 1947, Haifa. Haganah sank the British transport “Empire Lifeguard” in Haifa harbor as it was discharging 300 Jewish immigrants who had officially been admitted to Palestine under quota. Sixty-five immigrants were killed and 40 were wounded. The British were able to refloat the ship.
152
July 24, 1947, Amman, Trans-Jordan. Seven members of the UN Palestine Commission flew to Amman and were informed by Jordanian Premier Samir Pasha el Rifai that:
(1) Palestine belongs to the Arabs; (2) the Arabs never accepted the Balfour Declaration; (3) the Jews are imperialistic invaders whose immigration “must be stopped forthwith”; (5) Palestine should get unpartitioned independence under the Arab majority; (6) the plight of European refugees does not concern Palestine; (7) the Arabs will justly resist with force any unfavorable decision.
153
July 26, 1947. Jewish terrorists blew up the Iraqi Petroleum Co. pipeline 12 miles east of Haifa and destroyed a Mt. Carmel radar station.
154
July 26, 1947, Palestine. Two British soldiers were killed by a booby trap near Jerusalem, raising the week’s violence toll to 12 killed and 75 wounded.
155
July 26, 1947, Palestine. Menachem Begin, leader of the Irgun, announced from his secret headquarters that Haganah had planned the King David Hotel bombing in Jerusalem on July 22, 1946 in which 91 persons were killed.
156
July 27, 1947, Palestine. An ambush and mines cost the British seven more casualties, all wounded.
157
July 28, 1947, Haifa. Two small Haganah ships loaded with 1,174 Jews from North Africa were intercepted by British naval units off Palestine and brought into Haifa. The illegal immigrants were transshipped aboard British transports and taken to Cyprus.
158
July 29, 1947, Palestine. The British authorities hanged three Irgunists in Acre prison despite appeals from Jewish leaders. The condemned, Myer Nakar, Absalom Habib and Jacob Weiss, had fought in the Czech underground during the war. They were convicted of blowing up Acre Prison on May 4 and liberating 200 Arabs and Jews.
159
July 29, 1947, France. The 4,429 “Exodus 1947” illegal immigrants who sailed from Sete, France, July 11 for Palestine only to be shipped back by the British aboard three transports, refused to debark as the vessels anchored off Port de Douc, France. Only a few who were ill went ashore. The French government informed the refugees that they do not have to debark but will be welcomed if they do. The transports are the “Runnymede Park,” “Ocean Vigour” and “Empire Valour.”
160
July 30, 1947, Palestine. Irgun terrorists announced that they have hanged two British sergeants, Marvyn Paice and Clifford Martin, whom they had held as hostages since July 12, for “crimes against the Jewish community.” The two were seized when death sentences on the three Irgun members were confirmed by the British authorities. Two more British soldiers were killed by a land mine near Hadera. British troops attacked the Jewish colony of Pardes Hanna in revenge for the murders.
161
July 31, 1947, Nathanya. The bodies of the two murdered British sergeants were found hanging from eucalyptus trees one and a half miles from Nathanya about 5:30 AM. A booby trap blew Martin’s body to bits when it was cut down. Enraged British troops stormed into Tel Aviv, wrecked shops, attacked pedestrians and sprayed a bus with gunfire killing five Jews: two men, two women and a boy.
162
August 1, 1947, Tel Aviv. Thirty-three Jews are injured in an anti-British riot at Tel Aviv during the funeral procession of five civilians killed by British soldiers on July 31. In Jerusalem a Jewish terrorist attack on the British security zone in Rehavia was repulsed with one attacker killed and two captured.
163
August 2, 1947, Tel Aviv. The body of an unidentified Jew was found on a road near Tel Aviv. He was believed to have been kidnapped by men in British uniforms two weeks ago. Total casualties in Palestine since mid-July: 25 persons slain, 144 wounded. The dead include 15 Britons, two Jewish terrorists, eight civilians. Anti-British slogans, swastikas and dollar signs are painted onto British consulates in New York, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Chicago and Los Angeles.
164
August 3, 1947, Palestine. Haganah warned in Jerusalem that the Britons who killed five Jews in Tel Aviv on July 31 will be found and punished.
165
August 4, 1947, Paris. An Irgun leader in Paris states that his organization has sentenced high British military and civilian officials in Palestine to death “in absentia” and will hang them upon capture.
166
August 4, 1947, Palestine. British troops blew up a Jewish house in a Jerusalem suburb in which arms were found. Jewish terrorists robbed Barclay’s Bank in Tel Aviv of $5,200 and a Haganah member was killed.
167
August 5, 1947, Palestine. Striking at dawn, British security forces arrested 35 leading Zionists and sent them to the Latrun detention camp in an attempt to wipe out the Irgun leadership.
In reprisal, Irgunists blew up the Department of Labor in Jerusalem, killing three British constables. Those arrested included Mayor Israel Rokach of Tel Aviv; Mayor Oved Ben Ami of Nathanya; Mayor Abraham Krinitzki of Ramat Gan; Arieh Altman, president of the radical Revisionist Party; Menahem Arber, leader of the Revisionist youth organization, B’rith Trumpeldor, which is outlawed; Max Kritzman, Dov Bela Gruner’s attorney, and David Stern, brother of the late founder of the Stern gang.
All those arrested except the three mayors were Revisionists. Among many papers confiscated was correspondence from Soviet Russian agents in Italy and Bulgaria and extensive plans to poison the water supply of the non-Jewish parts of Jerusalem with botulism and other bacteria. Bacteria was supplied by Soviet sources through Bulgaria.
168
August 5, 1947, England. Anti-Semitic outbreaks slackened after five days of rock-throwing, window-smashing and other incidents including daubing Jewish businesses with swastikas and numerous assaults on British Jews.
These incidents occurred in Liverpool, Manchester, Cardiff (Wales), Leeds, London and Birmingham as retaliation for the murder of two British sergeants in Palestine.
Thirty-eight persons were arrested in Liverpool but in the main, the British police ignored the rioters and permitted them to run their course.
169
August 8, 1947, Palestine. The Bank of Sharon in Ramat Gan was robbed by Jewish terrorists of $8,000.
170
August 14, 1947, Geneva. The UN Special Subcommittee on Palestine returned to Geneva after a seven-day tour of DP camps in Austria and Germany. The tour took the group to Munich, Vienna, Berlin and Hamburg. In Berlin it heard reports August 13 from General Lucius D. Clay, U.S. Military Governor. Clay testified that anti-Semitism is growing very sharply among the ranks of the U.S. military units in the U.S. zones of Austria and Germany because of the violent, asocial and criminal behavior of the Eastern European DPs, all of whom are Jewish. He recommended that these DPs be allowed to enter Palestine before some incident with American soldiers, who have been beaten, robbed and killed by Jewish DPs, leads to severe spontaneous reactions of the part of other soldiers. His views were seconded very strongly by Sir Brian Robertson, Deputy British Military Governor.
171
August 15, 1947, Palestine. A mine derailed a Cairo-Haifa troop train north of Lydda, killing the engineer, and Irgun terrorists claimed the incident was part of its campaign to disrupt all the Palestine rail traffic.
172
August 16, 1947, Palestine. Arab-Jewish clashes have brought death to 12 Arabs and 13 Jews and heavy property destruction this week in the regions of Jewish Tel Aviv and Arab Jaffa. Interracial strife was renewed on August 10 when Arabs killed four Jews in a Tel Aviv cafe, in reprisal for the deaths of two Arabs in a Haganah raid in Fega two months ago. Haganah responded to the Arab actions by bombing a house in an Arab orange grove near Tel Aviv, killing eleven Arabs, including a woman and four children.
British military curfews imposed on August 13 on slum districts between modern Tel Aviv and Jaffa have failed to prevent mounting casualties. British military authorities, citing captured intelligence and statements from Jewish defectors from terrorists organisations, state that it now appears that the Jewish terrorists are beginning to attack Arabs where ever they found them because Jews wish the Arabs to be driven out of Palestine entirely.
173
August 18, 1947, Palestine. The shops of five Jewish merchants in Tel Aviv were destroyed by the Irgun because the owners refused to give money to that organization.
174
August 23, 1947, Jerusalem. British authorities reported that five Arabs in one family, two men, one woman and two children, were murdered by Jewish terrorists as retaliation for the British arrest of two Irgun leaders on August 15.
175
September 9, 1947, Hamburg, Germany. In a bitter three-hour fight aboard the “Runnymede Park,” 350 British troops completed a two-day forced debarkation of 4,300 “Exodus 1947” illegal Jewish refugees from three ships in Hamburg, Germany. First ashore yesterday were the “Ocean Vigour’s” 1,406; a few put up token resistance and five passengers sustained minor injuries. Early today, the “Empire Rival’s” 1,420 passengers debarked peaceably after a home made bomb was found in the ship’s hold.
Many of the “Runnymede Park’s” 1,485 passengers fiercely resisted the debarkation process and British military units had to use fire hoses and truncheons to rout resisters below decks.
The Jews were taken ashore screaming “Nazis” to the British. “Runnymede Park” casualties, officially, were 24 Jews and three Britons injured, with 50 leaders of the resistance on that ship taken to jail. German police broke up a Hamburg demonstration by 1,300 Jewish DPs from the Bergen-Belsen camp, where British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevan was hanged in effigy on September 7. The debarked “Exodus” passengers were interned in Poppendorf camp near Luebeck for screening by nationalities and at first all of them refused to cooperate with British authorities until the passengers were threatened with a diet of bread and water.
176
September 10, 1947, Washington D.C. Secretary of State George C. Marshall disclosed that the U.S. had urged Britain to reconsider sending the “Exodus” group to Germany, but Britain replied that there were no facilities for housing them elsewhere because the French did not want them and there were a number of vacant detention camps in Germany.
177
September 10, 1947, Paris. The French government has now announced that it would admit the “Exodus” refugees if they were not forcibly deported from Germany and on the understanding that they will be admitted eventually to Palestine.
178
September 7, 1947, Paris. French police state a Stern gang plot to attack London with home-made fire extinguisher bombs from the air was thwarted through the cooperation of Reginald Gilbert of St. Lous, Missouri, a student and wartime RCAF and AAF pilot. He was taken into custody with Rabbi Baruch Korff, of New York, co-chairman of the Political Action Committee for Palestine, and Judith Rosenberger, Hungarian-born Stern gang member, as the three started to enter a private plane last night at Toussus-le-Noble field near Versailles.
Gilbert informed French police that Korff had approached him in Paris a week ago with an offer for flying a bombing mission over London the day of the “Exodus” illegal immigrant landings in Germany.
Gilbert accepted for some other pilot who would actually perform the mission. He at once notified Paris police, then worked with them and Scotland Yard while pretending to go through with the Stern gang’s plot. Korff was charged in Paris on September 9 with illegal possession of bombs he was intending to drop on London. He began a hunger strike. Paris police state that nine other conspirators were in custody.
179
September 12, 1947, Palestine. Irgun has threatened to assassinate British representatives in the U.S. Zone of Germany and all British delegations there are under 24-hour guard, the U.S. command announced in Frankfurt-on-the-Main. A probe of Irgun thefts from U.S. army ammunition depots in Germany was reported on September 7.
180
September 20, 1947, Jerusalem. British raids September 16-19 uncovered several arms caches and terrorist hideouts in the Jerusalem area.
The home of David Ben-Gurion, Jewish Agency executive chairman was robbed of important papers September 18. In Paris, Rabbi Baruch Korff, leader of a Stern gang plot to bomb London, ended a hunger strike in Sante prison on September 15.
181
October 13, 1947, Jerusalem. A terrorist bomb damaged the U.S. consulate general in Jerusalem, injuring two employees slightly. Similar bombinbs occurred at the Polish consulate general last night and at the Swedish consulate on September 27.
In Baghdad, the Iraq foreign office advised an American House Foreign Affairs Committee group not to make a projected visit there because of “high feeling” over U.S. endorsement of partitioning in Palestine.
The State Deparatment in Washington announced it will issue no passports to American citizens who want to take part in terrorism in Palestine. Americans so involved will forfeit protection normally due U.S. citizens abroad.
182
October 18, 1947, Palestine. The Palestine Government states that Palestine Arab forces have been sent from the Trans-Jordan frontier to the Syrian and Lebanon borders to replace a British brigade which recently left Palestine. Zionists protested having Arab troops on the border of northern Palestine.
183
November 14, 1947, Palestine. Jewish terrorists killed two British policemen in Jerusalem and two soldiers in Tel Aviv to raise the total casualties in three days of violence to 10 Britons and five Jews killed and 33 Britons and five Jews wounded. The outbreaks began after British troops killed three girls and two boys in a raid on a farmhouse arsenal near Raanana on November 12. The terrorists retaliated yesterday by throwing hand grenades and firing a machine gun into the Ritz Cafe in Jerusalem.
184
November 15, 1947, London. The British Foreign Office denied Jerusalem press reports that Britain planned to take over any financial surplus left in Palestine’s treasury in pay for the costs of evacuation and combating unauthorized Jewish immigration.
185
November 16, 1947, Palestine. About 185 European Jews landed near Nahariya from a small schooner and escaped before the British could intercept them. A larger vessel, the “Kadimah,” was seized and brought to Haifa where 794 Jews were transshipped to a British transport for Cyprus.
186
November 17, 1947, Jerusalem. The British administration disclosed that it will sell state-owned real estate along the Haifa waterfront, from which it expects to make $8 million. It will also invest in England about $16 million from bonds that had been sold to Palestinians. Zionists strongly protested this as they said it would denude Palestine of its assets. There was no comment from the administration to these charges.
187
November 22, 1947, Haifa. Another Arab was murdered in Haifa by the Stern gang following their execution of four Arabs near Raanana November 20 in retaliation for the British shooting of five Stern gang members on November 12. Arabs retaliated against this killing at Raanana by wounding five Jews on a bus near Tel Aviv on November 20.
188
November 30-December 6, 1947, Palestine. A week of disorders brought on by Arab wrath over the UN’s decision to partition the Holy Land ended with at least 159 killed in the Middle East, 66 in Palestine. While Jews in Palestine, Europe and the U.S. celebrated and began planning their new state and the UN moved to implement its plan, war talk was rife throughout the Arab world.
The Arab League announced on December 1 that premiers and foreign ministers of seven Arab states would meet in Cairo next week to plan strategy against partition.
In Palestine: Jerusalem and the Jaffa Tel Aviv boundary zone were centers of week-long strife which began when seven Jews were killed throughout Palestine on November 30 and the mayor of Nablus, Arab nationalist center, proclaimed jihad or a holy war. British High Commissioner Sir Alan Cunningham warned the Arab Higher Command on December 1 that Britain was determined to keep order so long as it held its mandate, and police stopped Arab agitators from raising crowds in Jerusalem. But Jewish celebrations there were stoned.
Arabs looted and burned a three-block Jewish business district in Jerusalem on December 2, the first day of a three-day Arab general strike during which 20 Jews and 15 Arabs were killed. When British troops failed to intervene, Haganah (unofficial Zionist militia) came into the open for the first time in eight years to restrain large-scale Jewish retaliation and also guard Jewish districts. Some Haganah men were arrested for possessing weapons. The day’s strife cause $1 million worth of damage and resulted in a 24-hour curfew being applied to Arab Jerusalem for the rest of the week. The curfew was extended to outlying roads on December 3 to stop stonings of Jewish traffic and keep rural Arabs out of the capital. Max Pinn, head of the Jewish Agency’s Trade and Transfer Department was killed on December 2 when Arabs stoned his auto near Ramleh. On this day Jews stoned Arab buses in Jerusalem.
On the Jaffa-Tel Aviv boundary, which also is under around-the-clock curfew, the week’s heaviest battle was a six-hour clash between Haganah and Arabs on December 3 in which seven Jews and five Arabs were killed and 75 persons injured. On December 2, Haganah claimed to have mobilized 10,000 men in the intercity trouble zone, and the Arab Legion of Trans-Jordan reported on this date that it had reinforced Jaffa. Seven Jews were killed in Jaffa-Tel Aviv on this date. There were lesser attacks in Haifa this week.
It becomes clearly evident that the partition is not going as planned and that although the Jews are pleased, the Arabs are not. There appears to be no way to control the Jews or their determination to drive all of the Arabs out of Jerusalem by force if necessary. The Arabs, initially living in peace with the Jewish minority, have been increasingly victimized by the Jews who, now that the British are leaving, are turning their savage behavior against them.
The Jews have redoubled their efforts to build a military force and arm them. They claim that this force is to protect the Jewish population against attacks from the Arab countries as well as the Arab population of Jerusalem but an even stronger argument can be made that the Zionists are determined to drive out the Arab population by armed force. The initial Arab response to Jewish harassment over the past year has been very slow in coming but it seems to be quite inevitable and a terrible civil war is foreseen.
The United States Department of State announced on December 5, 1947 that they were placing an embargo on all American arms shipments to the Middle East. It appears that the Soviets have been sending weapons, mostly captured German pieces, to assist the Zionists and accompanying these clandestine arms shipments the Soviets have also sent a very sizable contingent of instructors and advisors to Palestine in months past.
As many of the Zionists are Russian or Polish in origin, these Communist Russians have been received gladly by the Jewish extremists and quickly blend in with the local populations.
Soviet interest in Middle East oil and an overriding interest in obtaining warm-water ports are a prime factor in their interest in a Jewish state in Palestine.
The most violent reactions in the Arab world to the UN partition idea are Syrian and Egyptian. However, it is noted that the worst outbreak of anti-partition violence outside Palestine occurred in Aden, a British colony at the entrance to the Red Sea. On December 5, British military reinforcements were sent to Aden after four days of Arab-Jewish fighting in which 50 Jews and 25 Arabs were killed.
In Syria, public demonstrations by the Arab population paralyzed business in Damascus earlier this week. The Soviet cultural center and Communist headquarters in Damascus were wrecked on November 30 with four persons killed. The Syrian Communist Party was officially disbanded by the government and the U.S. and British Embassy flags were torn down. On December 1, Syria introduced military training into all boys’ schools and on December 2, the Syrian Parliament enacted a draft law and voted $860,000 for the relief of Palestinian Arabs. On the same day Arabs attacked the Jewish part of Aleppo.
In Egypt the Chamber of Deputies resolved on December 1 to help keep Palestine a totally Arab state and to support the Arab population of Palestine against attacks by the Jewish minority. There were repeated anti-U.S. and British demonstrations in Egypt’s main cities, and the British Institute in Zagazig was burned on December 2. All public meetings were banned in Cairo after Egyptian police fought with 15,000 people on December 4.
In Lebanon, Arab students smashed the windows of the U.S. Legation in Beirut on December 1 and Lebanese Communists demonstrated against the partition of Palestine and all schools were closed to prevent student disorders.
In Iraq, students in Baghdad wrecked the U.S. Information offices on December 4.
In Saudi Arabia, anti-American demonstrations by Arabs in the oil fields were restrained by the government.
189
December 13, 1947, Palestine. Jewish terrorists shifted from defense to attack in the second week of conflict with the Arabs since the UN voted for partition of Palestine.
The death toll for the past 14 days was at least 220 in Palestine and 336 in the Middle East, including 111 in Aden in the previous week.
Arab retaliatory raids at Jaffa and Tel Aviv had killed 30 Jews and Arabs when local businessmen on both sides arranged a truce on December 10 to effect an orange harvest. On December 11, however, the Arabs renewed their assaults in the Old City of Jerusalem, which was the worst day of the current strife with 41 fatalities throughout Palestine. On December 12, Haganah launched attacks on both the Arabs and British with a death toll of 20 Arabs, five Jews and two British soldiers killed.
On December 13, bombings by the Irgun killed at least 16 Arabs and injured 67 more in Jerusalem and Jaffa and burned down a hundred Arab houses in Jaffa.
In Syria, an anti-Jewish attack in retaliation for the Irgun actions burned down a 2,750-year old synagogue in Aleppo and destroyed the priceless Ben-Asher Codex, a 10th century Hebrew Bible of original Old Testament manuscripts.
190
December 14, 1947, Lydda. Regular troops of the Arab Legion of the Trans-Jordan Army killed 14 Jews and wounded nine Jews, two British soldiers and one Arab when they attacked a bus convoy approaching their camp near Lydda. The Arabs said the Jews attacked them first.
191
December 17, 1947, Cairo. Premiers of the seven Arab League states called on the Arabs to “prepare for the struggle.” They promised to “prosecute the fight until victorious.” General Nuri as-Said Pasha, president of the Iraqi Senate, accused the U.S. of breaking a promise of neutrality.
192
December 17, 1947, Nevatim. British troops came to the aid of police standing off a raid by 100 Arabs on the Jewish settlement of Nevatim, seven miles west of Beersheba.
193
December 18, 1947, Khisas. Haganah killed 10 Arabs, including five children in a reprisal raid on Khisas in Northern Palestine.
194
December 19, 1947, Damascus. Reliable reports from Damascus state that Arab guerrillas are massing there in preparation to launching an attack into Palestine before the first of the year.
195
December 20, 1947, Palestine. Haganah carried out another raid on Arabs by attacking the village of Qazasa near Rehovoth. One Arab was killed and two were wounded.
196
December 21, 1947, Jerusalem. The Jewish Agency gave official approval for Haganah to make reprisal raids on Arab villages and “exterminate nests of brigands.”
197
December 25, 1947, Haifa. Emir Mohammed Zeinati, an Arab landowner, was killed in Haifa for selling land to the Jews.
198
December 25, 1947, Tel Aviv. Stern gang terrorists machine-gunned two British soldiers in a Tel Aviv cafe.
199
December 26, 1947, Palestine. Armed Jewish terrorists raided two diamond factories in Nazthaanya and Tel Aviv and escaped with $107,000 in diamonds, cash and bonds. The Stern gang distributed leaflets reporting that Israel Levin, a member, was murdered in Tel Aviv on December 24 for trying to betray a Stern gang member.
200
December 29, 1947, Palestine. Irgun members kidnaped and flogged a British major and three sergeants in retaliation for the flogging of Benjamin Kimkhim who was also sentenced to 18 years in prison on December 27 for robbing a bank. The major, E. Brett, was seized in Nathanya and the sergeants in Tel Aviv and Rishon el Siyon. Each got 18 lashes, the same number Kimkhim received.
201
December 29, 1947, Jerusalem. An Irgun terrorist bombing at the Damascus Gate in Jerusalem killed 11 Arabs and two Britons.
202
December 30, 1947, London. The Dollis Hill Synagogue in London was set on fire and 12 sacred scrolls were destroyed by angry British citizens who scrawled on the burned edifice “You whip—we burn.”
203
December 21-31, 1947, Palestine. Arab-Jewish conflict in the Holy Land increased the death toll to 489 from violence in Palestine in the 33 days since the UN decided on partition.1948
204
January 3-10, 1948, Palestine. Extensive Jewish Agency purchases of U.S. war surplus high explosives with which to fight Arabs were disclosed in the New York City area. While 191 tons of TNT and the more powerful M-3 were seized before shipment, 73 tons cleared New York for Palestine.
The TNT shipment was accidentally discovered when longshoremen loading the American Export Lines freighter “Executor” in Jersey City on January 3, dropped a box marked “industrial machinery” and while attempting to repair the box, found cans of TNT bearing U.S. Army markings.
The “machinery” proved to be 32 1/2 tons of TNT, which the U.S. Customs impounded as contraband because of the ban on American arms shipments to the Middle East. On January 10, the FBI was attempting to trace the souce of the contraband.
The Jewish Agency for Palestine acknowledged on January 10 that it had purchased 199 tons of M-3 from the War Assets Administration at the Army’s Seneca Ordnance Depot near Romulous, New York.
Federal and state agents recovered 126 tons from a farmhouse and trucks near Asbury Park, New Jersey, and Barclay Heights and Saugerties, New York on January 8-9 but 73 tons were believed to be en route to Palestine.
The Jewish Agency called its transaction with the WAA legal, admitted having set up “Foundry Associates, Inc.” in New York with a Haganah agent in charge, to buy explosives for their war on the Arabs. The FBI said Leonard Weisman, president of three New York firms (Pratt Steamship Line, Material Redistribution Corporation and Paragon Design and Development Co.) gave the Haganah agent office space but did nothing illegal.
WAA stopped all deliveries on unfilled orders on January 9 in the New York area. It said Foundry Associates, Inc., had sworn that it was a normal trader in explosives, thereby qualifying to buy the M-3, and that the export question was a U.S. Department of State matter.
205
January 4, 1948, Jaffa. A series of Jewish terrorist bombings inflicted heavy Arab casualties. 14 were killed and 100 injured when the Stern gang destroyed the Arab National Committee headquarters in Jaffa.
206
January 5, 1948, Jerusalem. 15 Arabs were killed after Haganah bombed the Semiramis Hotel.
207
January 6, 1948, Jerusalem. The British Government denounced the Semiramis attack as “wholesale murder of innocent people” but the Jewish Agency alleged that “Arab gangs” used the hotel and asked why attacks on Jews had not been equally denounced.
208
January 7, 1948, Jerusalem. 14 Arabs were killed by two Irgun terrorist bombs at Jerusalem’s Jaffa Gate.
209
January 10, 1948, Jerusalem. The official death toll in Palestine since November 29 (when the UN voted for partition) had risen to 646.
210
January 12, 1948, Tel Aviv. Stern gang members looted Barclay’s Bank in Tel Aviv of $37,000.
211
January 13, 1948, Washington. The U.S. War Assets Administration received orders from Army Secretary Kenneth Royal to cancel its sale of 199 tons of M-3 explosive to a purchasing agent of the Jewish Agency, which got 73 tons out of the country before the rest was seized.
212
January 14-15, 1948, New York. The FBI arrested six New York men on charges of trying to ship Haganah 60,000 pounds of TNT, which was seized in Jersey City after having been bought from the Letterkenny Arsenal Ordnance Depot in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania.
213
January 16-17, 1948, Haifa. Zionists claimed they had murdered 82 Arabs, mostly civilians, in a 24 hour period. In retaliation for the massacres, Arabs machine-gunned 35 Haganah men who were en route to attack another Arab farming settlement.
214
January 17, 1948, Jerusalem. The official death toll of Arabs killed by Jewish terrorists since November 29 had risen to 831.
215
January 25, 1948, Jerusalem. Following the deaths of ten Jews and two Arabs killed in a battle outside Jerusalem, British authorities stated that 721 Arabs, 408 Jews, 19 civilians and 12 British policemen (a total of 1,160) had been killed in an eight-week period that 1,171 Arabs, 749 Jews, 13 civilians and 37 British officers had been wounded.
216
January 26, 1948, Palestine. Mrs. Golda Meyerson, Jewish Agency political director in Jerusalem, and Moshe Shertok, chief of all Agency political operations, told the UN Palestine Commission that Jews must arm against possible Arab threats and Shertok demanded a UN policy that would compel the U.S. to lift its embargo on arms destined for Jewish groups in the Middle East.
217
January 26, 1948, Jerusalem. Rabbi Hillel Silver, chief of the Jewish Agency’s American division, cut short a trip to Jerusalem to return to the U.S. and campaign for American public support of armed Jewish backing for partition and eventual Zionist control of all Palestine. On January 27, his agency called upon 15,000 young men and women to join Haganah by February 15. British intelligence reports indicate that Haganah had grown from 3,500 to 12,000 full-time members since December 1.
218
January 31, 1948, London. British Foreign Office officials revealed that over 1,000 Soviets, all Russian-speaking Communist military technicians, had been intercepted on the immigrant ships “Pan York” and “Pan Crescent.”
219
February 1, 1948, Jerusalem. Arab groups took credit for a bombing that destroyed the “Palestine Post” building. The newspaper had an extensive history of inciting the Jewish inhabitants of Jerusalem to “destroy Arabs and force them out” of Palestine.
220
February 1, 1948, Milwaukee. Moshe Shertok, Jewish Agency political director, stated that statements that Communist agents were among the intercepted “Pan York” and “Pan Crescent” immigrants from Bulgaria were untrue. Shertok cited a statement from Cyprus refugee camp commissioner, Sir Godfrey Collins, confirming his statement. Collins subsequently denied making such a statement. Shertok further said that the Jews of Palestine welcomed all Jews into their country and that Jewish Communists were equally welcome. He denied rumors of Soviet clandestine assistance to various Jewish terrorist groups.
221
February 3, 1948, Jerusalem. Stern gang terrorists killed two British policemen because the bombers of the “Post” had allegedly worn police uniforms. Arabs attacked the Jerusalem Central Prison but were driven off by the guards.
222
February 6, 1948, London. The British Foreign Office sent Bulgaria a note of rebuke for “deliberately conniving” in the transshipment of illegal Soviet immigrants to Palestine.
223
February 10, 1948, Jerusalem. British military units prevented Arabs from bringing dynamite and firebombs into Jerusalem’s Old City in an attempt to blow up its Jewish Quarter.
224
February 10, 1948, Palestine. Jewish terrorist groups murdered ten Arabs near an RAF camp in central Palestine. A further 23 Arabs were murdered by Jewish groups throughout Palestine.
225
February 11, 1948, Palestine. The British Royal Navy intercepted the ship “Beleaguered Jerusalem” off Nahariya and its 679 Jewish illegal immigrants were transshipped to Cyprus.
226
February 13, 1948, Palestine. A British Army sergeant was arrested in a probe of the death of four Jewish terrorists who were arrested at their sniper post and then released in an Arab neighborhood. The Jews were immediately stoned to death by the Arabs.
227
February 15, 1948, Galilee. Jewish terrorists raided an Arab settlement in upper Galilee, killing 30 Arabs, including 10 children, and blew up bridges.
228
February 16, 1948, New York. The UN Palestine Commission reported to the Security Council that it would take a UN military force to save the Palestine partition from “catastrophic” failure. The report criticized “[c]ertain elements of the Jewish community,” for “irresponsible acts of violence which worsen the security situation.”
The Commission quoted official British figures on Palestine casualties during November 30-February 1: 869 killed, including 427 Arabs, 381 Jews, 46 British and 15 of other nationalities; 1,909 wounded, including 1,035 Arabs, 725 Jews, 135 British and 14 others.
229
February 20, 1948, Jerusalem. Twelve Jewish terrorists, including Moshe Svorai, second in command of the Stern gang, escaped from the Central Prison in Jerusalem.
230
February 22, 1948, Jerusalem. Two truckloads of high explosives were detonated in Ben Yehuda Street in the Jewish section of Jerusalem.
The blast leveled a three block Jewish business center, killing at least 60 with 20 missing and 200 injured. Jews blamed the British because armored trucks with police insignia had escorted the truck bombs into the area.
231
February 23, 1948, Palestine. Northern Palestine Arabs took credit for the Ben Yehuda bombing and said they had carried out the attack as retaliation for a Jewish bombing that had killed seven Arabs in Ramleh.
232
February 27, 1948, Jerusalem. Two anti-Communist Polish residents of Jerusalem were murdered by Stern gang terrorists who claimed the Poles were “pro-Arab.”
233
February 29, 1948, Rehovoth. The British Mandate Government denounced the Jewish Agency after 28 British soldiers were killed and 35 seriously injured when a Haifa-bound train from Cairo was blown up. Stern gang terrorists took credit for the bombing of the British train as revenge for the Ben Yehuda Street bombing in Jerusalem.
234
March 1, 1948, Jerusalem. The British Mandate government accused the Jewish Agency of circulating false charges that Britons had committed the Ben Yehuda bombing and of tolerating Jewish terrorists “for political reasons.” It warned that “continuance of indiscriminate murder” would mean “forfeiture by the Jewish community of all right ... to be numbered among civilized peoples.”
Immediately after issuance of this statement, the car of British Commander Lt. Gen. McMillan was bombed near Jerusalem but the general was not in the car at the time.
235
March 2, 1948, Haifa. Stern gang terrorists detonated a truckful of explosives at an Arab office building in Haifa, killing at least 14 Arabs.
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March 4, 1948, Ramallah. In retaliation for the Haifa bombing of March 2, Arabs ambushed and killed 17 Haganah youths near Ramallah.
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March 5, 1948, Tel Aviv. Haganah killed 15 Arabs near Tel Aviv in revenge for the March 4 ambush of their members.
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March 5, 1948, Jerusalem. The Jewish Agency stated that large-scale Jewish arms shipments were ready in various Mediterranean ports destined for the arming of Jewish partisans in Palestine to “fight and drive out” the Arab population of what the Agency stated “was eternal Jewish land” that could not be occupied by either the British or the Arabs.
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March 11, 1948, Jerusalem. The Jewish Agency’s building in Jerusalem was bombed with 13 persons killed and 84 injured. An American car, believed to have been stolen from the U.S. consulate by an Arab chauffeur, was driven through the agency’s elaborate barricades with a load of explosives. The driver escaped.
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March 11, 1948, New York. Communist and their left wing labor unions turned out over 10,000 persons in a protest rally against U.S. “betrayal” of partition.
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March 12, 1948, New York. Columnist Drew Pearson said in his “Washington Merry-Go-Round” column that President Harry Truman had given Democratic party leaders the following reason for holding back on enforcement of Palestine partition after having championed this in the UN last year:
Russia was after a U.S. Army-built railroad north from the Persian Gulf, plus all Arab oil regions and the Eastern Mediterranean. On March, Pearson had stated in the same forum that President Truman had told a New York publisher that New York Jews were “disloyal” to the United States.
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March 12, 1948, New York. An Arab Higher Command paper was issued that charged the Jewish Agency with massing Soviet trained and equipped illegal immigrants in Eastern Europe for war service in Palestine and had “set up laboratories for bacteriological warfare.”
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March 17, 1948, Palestine. British authorities released the latest casualty figures:
In March, 566 persons, including 271 Jews, 256 Arabs, 39 British and others were killed.
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March 30, 1948, New York. Soviet and Jewish groups informed the UN Security Council that they defended the UN’s previous decision for a separate Jewish state. Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister, Andrei Gromyko, told the Security Council that partition was “a just solution,” that he was not convinced that it could not be carried out peacefully and that by “wrecking” it the U.S. would have to take the full blame for “a serious blow upon the UN organization.”
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April 1, 1948, New York. The UN found that it had transversed a circle—from one General Assembly session to another—in its year-long effort to solve the Palestine problem.
Britain referred the Holy Land dispute to the UN April 2, 1947, and asked for a special Assembly session. Events since then:
April 29-May 15, 1947, Assembly met, decided on special committee inquiry into the Palestine situation.
August 31, Special Palestine Committee (UNSCOP) recommended partition, internationalized Jerusalem.
November 29, Assembly approved partition, 33-13 (10 abstentions), U.S. led the fight for a separate Jewish state. Intensified Arab-Jewish fighting in Palestine.
December 11, Britain set May 15 as the date for surrender of its mandate over Palestine.
February 16, 1948, Assembly’s Palestine Commission asked for UN army to enforce partition over Arab resistance.
February 24, U.S. sidestepped endorsing forcible partition, asked the Council to seek Arab-Jewish agreement.
March 19, After the Big Five conciliation efforts failed, the U.S. abandoned its partition plan and proposed UN trusteeship over Palestine.
April 1, The Security Council agreed (Russia abstaining) to U.S. proposal for a special Assembly session to reconsider the Palestine problem and passed the U.S. resolution urging an Arab-Jewish truce.
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April 4, 1948, New York. A Zionist rally in New York’s Madison Square Park was attended by 100,000 persons, including 40,000 Jewish war veterans.
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April 6, 1948, Palestine. Jewish terrorists invaded the British Army’s largest camp near Pardes Hannan south of Haifa in a raid for firearms and murdered seven British soldiers.
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April 9, 1948, Washington. The U.S. Department of State refused to lift its embargo on arms shipments to the Middle East.
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April 9, 1948, Jerusalem. Irgun and Stern gang terrorists stormed an Arab suburb of Jerusalem, Dir Yashin, killing 250 Arabs, half of them women and children.
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April 25, 1948, Jaffa. The Irgun launched an attack on Arab Jaffa claiming that it was a stronghold for Arabs. They also attacked Tel Aviv with 2,000 men, armored cars and mortars and captured the Arab district of Mansieh. Their advance was halted when British fighter planes and light artillery were used against the Irgun.
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April 27, 1948, Palestine. Initially condemning the Irgun for its attack on Jaffa, the Haganah reached an agreement with Irgun and the latter agreed to operate under Haganah control. Both groups then attacked, Haganah seizing Jaffa’s eastern and southern suburbs. The Arab city was encircled by April 29, and all but 15,000 of Jaffa’s Arab inhabitants had been driven from the city, although the town was officially termed an Arab area. In Tel Aviv, the Stern gang robbed Barclay’s Bank of $1 million.
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April 30, 1948, Jerusalem. Haganah scored victories against the Arab residents after fruitless UN efforts to arrange a truce that would protect historical shrines in the ancient Walled City. Jewish extremists threatened to dynamite the Arab Dome of the Rock Mosque unless all Arabs immediately evacuated Jerusalem. The British response was that if this happened, they would blow up the Wailing Wall, the last remnant of the destroyed temple. The Haganah agreed to respect both Arab and Christan monuments but insisted all Arabs and Christians must leave Jerusalem. In a move they described as “defensive,” the Haganah overran the Christian Arab Katamon quarter in southwestern modern Jerusalem and captured most of the Moslem Mamilla cemetery. Jewish workers seized the general post office in Jerusalem. In Katamon, Haganah captured St. Simon’s Greek Orthodox Monastery, drove out the monks and vandalized the building. British troops stepped in to prevent further massacre of the Arabs.
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May 2, 1948, Jerusalem. The British finally halted widespread strife in Jerusalem by rushing several thousand mechanized army units and Royal Marine commandos back to Palestine. Their primary purpose was to protect Arab civilians who were being slaughtered by rampaging Zionists.
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May 5-8, 1948, Palestine. The Haganah, now styling itself a “Jewish Army,” struck Upper Galilee in northeastern Palestine and claimed to have crushed any Arab resistance by the end of the week. Safad, capital of Upper Galilee and normally a city of 15,000 Arabs, was reported by the Jewish Agency as having been “cleansed” of Arabs by May 6. The only remaining occupants of the town were 2,000 Jews. Haganah announced that all Arab property had been confiscated from the owners and would be given to Jewish settlers.
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May 4, 1948, Tel Aviv. The 37-man Jewish Legislative Council met in Tel Aviv and heard Premier-designate David Ben-Gurion declare that 150,000 Arabs had been driven from their homes in the past five months but that the Jews “haven’t lost a single settlement.” The Stern gang resumed “direct war” against the British for protecting the Arab population in Jerusalem. Seven British soldiers were killed near Nethanya. At the same time, Stern gang took credit for a letter bomb which killed the young brother of a British army officer in England.
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May 6, 1948, Jerusalem. Haganah was redesignated as the Jewish State Army and reported that 200 aircraft, later revealed by British authorities as having come from Czechoslovakia, whose new communist government is almost entirely composed of Zionists and who have been pouring weapons into Palestine, are slated to reinforce the new army. The army will be increased to 85,000 immediately.
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May 16, 1948, New York. The number of states recognizing Israel increased to eight this week, and the new country applied for admission to the UN. Russia immediately granted recognition on May 17, implying that it recognized Israel’s government as the de jure (legal) government while the United States recognized Israel only as the de facto (in fact) government.
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May 22, 1948, Jerusalem. Thomas Wasson, U.S. Consul General in Jerusalem and a member of the Council’s Truce Commission, was fatally wounded by a Stern gang sniper near the U.S. Consulate. Two other Consulate members were also assaulted, one dying the next day.
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September 17, 1948, Jerusalem. Angered by his order to readmit 8,000 Arab refugees driven from three villages near Haifa by attacks of Jewish terrorists, the Stern gang assassinated Count Folke Bernadotte, UN mediator for Palestine. Also killed in the attack was French Col. André Serot, chief of France’s 100-man contingent in the unarmed UN truce-observer team.