8 Die as Arabs, Jews Burn, Riot in Palestine

By Robert Miller, United Press, Jerusalem

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“Jerusalem, Dec. 2 (U.P.).—Arab and Jewish mobs did damage estimated at more than $1,000,000 in Jerusalem today, the holy men of 1,000-year-old Al Azhar University in Cairo called for a Mohammedan holy war against partition of Palestine, and a pitched night battle was reported fought in the turbulent no-man’s land between Arab Jaffa and Jewish Tel Aviv.

Ten thousand men of the Hagana organization—the future Jewish army—who made their first appearance as peacemakers in the streets of Jerusalem today, moved in to form a living wall between Arabs in Jaffa and Jews in Tel Aviv. Late Monday night 2,000 picked men of Palmach, the Hagana striking force, started reconnoitering toward the Jaffa side of the border.

Sheets of flame lighted the entire border area as rioters on the Arab side set fire to Jewish shops and Jews put the torch to Arab establishments on their side. Fire brigades of both cities were prevented from approaching the burning buildings for fear of snipers posted in the tortuous alleyways.

During the day’s disorders the death toll in clashes throughout Palestine reached eight—seven Jews and one Arab, with 36 Jews and three Arabs wounded. (The Associated Press said an unofficial casualty list showed eight Arabs and six Arabs killed, with 32 Jews and six Arabs wounded.)

The Syrian Parliament in Damascus decreed compulsory national service, appropriated $920,000 for defense of Palestine and named the chief of the Iraq general staff…”

Context added by this archive

Printed beside a story headed “20,000 Listen To Appeal for Arms for Zion,” an overflow rally at 31 W. 34th St. in Manhattan, and a Christmas shopping-days box. The parenthesis giving the Associated Press count reads “eight Arabs and six Arabs killed”; that is the paper’s.

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"8 Die as Arabs, Jews Burn, Riot in Palestine," Daily News, 3 December 1947, p. 1. Covering Palestine archive, CP-1947-019. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-1947-019