Evening star., 1948-01-01
BY the Associotsd Press

tering machine guns and BURST
ing grenades, killing 6 Arabs and
wounding 80, Palestine police re-
ported.
Two Jews were killed.
The raid, made at am. on the
villages of Ballad Esh Shiekh and
Hawassa, were believed to be in
retaliation for the massacre by
Arabs Of two score Jews Tuesday in
the Consolidated Refinery plant at
Haifa. Both villages are mainly oc-
cupied by Arab refinery workers.
The Associated Press count Of
dead in Palestine since communal
strife erupted following the United
Nations decision November 29 to
partition the Holy Land rose to 500
(The exiled Mufti of Jerusa-
lem, Hal Amin FL Husseini, told
reporters in Cairo he was "satis-
fled with Arab resistance" to the
U. N. decision. He had just con-
ferred with Premier Mahmoud
Fahmy Nokrashy Pasha of
Egypt)
Sporadic shooting occurred in the
streets of Haifa during the morning,
and some 20 Jews and Arabs were
reported wounded slightly.
Arabs in Jerusalem attacked Jew
ish buses three times, but no cas-
ualty was reported.
Two Arabs attacked two British
constables leaving a courtroom in
Jaffa. One Of the Arabs was shot
dead and the other ran.
Rail Line is Blasted.
In the old walled city Of Jeru-
salem, police said Arabs had vir-
tually isolated several hundred Jews
and the Jewish Burial Society
opened q new cemetery to avoid the
necessity for long corteges, many Of
which have been shot up recently.
The rair line between Jaffa and
Tel Aviv was blasted in four places
lby Jewish bombs and there was
sporadic sniping in other parts Of
the Holy Land.
Communal fighting on the last
day of 1s47 added 10 more persons
to the long list Of those who have
met violent deaths.
The passing of the old year also
was marked by another act Of vio-
lence in Nazareth, where q band Of
armed men-believed by police to
be Arabs-robbed Barclays Bank of
about $4,000.
The unabated reign of terror
served to focus attention sharply
on the newly-completed five-mem-
ber U. N. Commission which is
scheduled to hold its first meeting
in New York on January to draft
plans for effecting the partition
Of Palestine and restoring peace.
With both Jews and Arabs pre-
pairing for outright civil war, the
question of what the commission
will do was matter of life and
death in the Holy Land.
So far there has been little indi-
cation of any great confidence here
that the commission will be able to
replace the British civil services in
May when the British mandate
ends, or that 1t will be able to re-
place the British Army and police
forces when they withdraw in Au-
gust.
The commission has full RESPONSE
bility for setting up provisional gov
ernments and security forces in the
proposed Jewish and Arab states,
but the bitterness of the current
struggle indicates this may be a
considerable task.
Theoretically the United Nations
decisions are backed by the armed
might of all the member nations,
but actually no international mill
tary force has been set up.
Britain, with close to 10000 men
here, has announced that she will
have no part in the enforcement
of partition. Few persons here
think that the United States-one
OF the principal sponsors of the
partition-really will send any
troops to Palestine.
Most observers In Palestine be-
lieve that when the U. N. commits
sion arrives here-probably about
January 30-it still will lack any
tangible means Of insuring peace,
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