Jews Recapture Kastel In Battle To Rule Highway

Deir Yassin Also Seized; Women and Children Among 200 Arab Dead

The Associated Press, Jerusalem

Jews Recapture Kastel In Battle To Rule Highway — The Morning News, 10 April 1948 — The Morning News · Wilmington, Delaware · 10 April 1948

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Transcribed from the clipping

“JERUSALEM, April 9 — Jewish fighters today stormed and recaptured Kastel, the most fought-over village in Palestine, in a new drive for control of the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem Highway, a Jewish Agency spokesman announced.

The victory restored to Haganah, the Jewish militia, positions lost yesterday during a determined Arab attack in which the Arabs’ Judean Army commander was killed. Haganah and the extremist groups, the Stern Gang and Irgun Zvai Leumi, participated in the Jewish counter-attack.

While one Jewish force knifed into Kastel the other seized Deir Yassin, four miles to the southeast. Commanders of the Irgun-Stern force which occupied Deir Yassin claimed their men killed 200 Arabs and said that half of the dead were women and children. A spokesman placed Jewish losses there at four killed and 40 wounded.

He said: ‘About half our force was killed or wounded.’ Earlier an Irgun source had said that approximately 100 Arab women and children found in the village had been turned over to the Red Cross. The battle for Deir Yassin itself lasted about two hours but fighting raged on the outskirts for another 14 hours.

The Stern and Irgun commanders declined newsmen’s requests to be taken to Deir Yassin because Arabs on surrounding hillsides still are sniping at the village.

Prepare for New Assaults. Tonight the 300 Jews holding Kastel prepared themselves for further assaults on Arab positions in the Judean hills. Kastel, classified for centuries as a military strongpoint, is five miles west of Jerusalem. Police announced the wireless mast of the Enab police station was damaged when a plane, believed to be Jewish, dropped six bombs.

No casualties were reported. Enab is about three miles west of Kastel. The battle came on the first day of the Khamsin winds which blow hot and dusty off the desert. The Irgun fighters wore steel helmets and new khaki uniforms with the shoulder patch emblem of their organization — a rifle held by a clenched fist over a map of Palestine and Trans-Jordan.

Arab Opposition Weak. Arab units were said to have put up only slight opposition at Kastel. This was in contrast to yesterday’s bitter fighting when the Arabs took the town after it had been held six days by the Jews. That attack cost the Arabs the commander of their Judean Army, Abdul Khadder Husseini, a cousin of the exiled Mufti of Jerusalem.

Five other Arabs and nine Jews also were slain. Today in the compounds of the Mosque of Omar in Jerusalem’s old walled city 30,000 persons attended Husseini’s funeral. He was entombed as he fell in the fight — in uniform and with a revolver strapped to his waist. Arab shops and restaurants in the area were closed.

Jewish sources pointed out that if their men can hold Kastel and Deir Yassin the Jews will have ac…”

How this transcription was made

The same news agency dispatch, under this same headline, ran in 44 American and Canadian papers on 9 and 10 April 1948 — among them Monroe, Monmouth, Anderson, Norfolk, Owen Sound, Fort Worth, Rutland and Owensboro. This is one printing of it, and the only one of the 44 whose second deck names Deir Yassin and counts the dead. The name itself was not scarce that week: 581 newspaper pages carry it between 9 and 12 April 1948. The photograph of this clipping stops partway down the column, mid-sentence at “Deir Yassin the Jews will have ac—”, so the transcription here ends where the scan ends, not where the article does.

Context added by this archive

Deir Yassin reported the day it happened, in the subheading, with the number and the words “Women and Children.” The count of 200 and the detail that half the dead were women and children are the attackers’ own claim, made by their commanders. The reporters asked to be taken to the village and were refused.

Cite this clipping

"Jews Recapture Kastel In Battle To Rule Highway," The Morning News, 10 April 1948, p. 1. Covering Palestine archive, CP-1948-011. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-1948-011