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Evening Star · Washington, District of Columbia · 23 April 1948

CP-1948-080

Jewish Militia Occupies Two More Arab Villages

By the Associated Press, Jerusalem

Jewish Militia Occupies Two More Arab Villages — Evening Star, 23 April 1948
Evening Star · Washington, District of Columbia · 23 April 1948

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Transcribed from the clipping

“JERUSALEM, April 23 (AP).—Jewish militia units occupied two more Arab villages in the rocky Judean Hills today, Jewish sources reported. Jews said their Hagana troops moved into Shufat, on the Jerusalem-Ramallah road, and Beit Iksa, between that highway and the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv convoy lane.

Beit Iksa is one of three Arab villages which the Jews attacked during morning operations. The others were Biddu and Nebi Samuel, also in a strategic area in the Judean Hills. Haifa, where Hagana defeated the Arabs yesterday, was reported quiet overnight… Hagana opened a drive for Haifa day before yesterday when the British withdrew to a limited area.

Yesterday the Arabs agreed to evacuate the city, whose port serves Palestine, Trans-Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq. Official sources here estimated 105 Arabs were killed in yesterday’s Haifa fighting.

Haifa reports yesterday listed four Hagana men and one Mauritian soldier also among the dead… By unofficial count, 3,281 persons have died by violence in Palestine since the United Nations partition recommendation of last November 29.

Arab leaders agreed on evacuation of Haifa yesterday rather than accept surrender terms requiring them to deliver up ‘foreign Arab fighters’ for deportation. At that time, the British said 35,000 to 40,000 Arabs already had left Haifa and 10,000 to 25,000 still were to be moved out. Many refugees went to Acre, across the bay.

The city has had about 130,000 inhabitants, about half Jewish. British military sources said Arabs departing would be stripped of their arms and the arms would be given to the Jews as war spoils with the end of the British mandate May 15.”

Context added by this archive

The subheading over the last four paragraphs is “Arabs Evacuate Haifa.” This is the contemporaneous version of the claim the leaders fold treats as retrospective, in Associated Press copy, the day after: Arab leaders agreed on evacuation rather than accept the surrender terms.

Cite this clipping

"Jewish Militia Occupies Two More Arab Villages," Evening Star, 23 April 1948, p. 1. Covering Palestine archive, CP-1948-080. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-1948-080

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Last updated 2 November 2026

This record is part of Covering Palestine, an archive of American newspaper clippings about Palestinians, 1724 to 2023. Researched and assembled by Maria Robles.

The clipping belongs to the newspaper that printed it, or to the news agency that supplied the copy. It is reproduced here for research, criticism and commentary. A city here is where the newspaper was published, not where the story came from, and on most records it was taken from the masthead.

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