The New York Times · 2 May 1949

CP-1949-032

Arab-Israeli Fight Near Jerusalem Follows Withdrawal of the Legion

By GENE CURRIVAN, Special to The New York Times.

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Transcribed from the clipping

TEL AVIV, Israel, May 1—An air-raid alert was sounded in Jerusalem tonight when local fighting between Israeli forces and Arabs broke out just below the city. The clash occurred after the Arab Legion had withdrawn to permit Israelis to take over a stretch along the railway, under the terms of the agreement signed at Rhodes between Israel and Jordan.

After the Legion had withdrawn, local Arabs in one section refused to be evacuated, and as a result there was a pitched battle. All details were barred by rigid censorship, but it was evident that the clash was more than a mere skirmish as the blasts and shooting were heard in Jerusalem.

Air alarms sounded throughout the city and the streets were cleared for more than three hours. A spokesman here said tonight that the engagement had been completed and that the Arabs had withdrawn, and that everything was back to normal. The agreement between Jordan and Israel was designed to clear certain Arab-held parts of the Lydda-Jerusalem railway. This has now been done.

The first explosions were heard at 7:40 P. M. May Day celebrations abruptly stopped, shops closed and everyone disappeared from the streets, just as they had done so many times before during the last year. Blackout curtains were brought out once again and everyone kept away from windows. But the blasts lasted only an hour and nothing happened after that.

Meanwhile, Egyptian troops were evacuating the territory that they held jointly with the Arab Legion and starting back to Egypt, in accordance with their agreement with the Israelis. It was at first thought that the Egyptians might have caused the explosions by blowing up stores too bulky to take with them.

They moved from the Bethlehem and Hebron districts through Israeli territory to Gaza without incident.

How this transcription was made

Transcribed from the slide scan by a reader working off magnified crops, not by optical character recognition. The newspaper is printed on the clipping in the credit line “Special to The New York Times.” beneath the byline. The clipping carries no masthead and no folio; the date is derived from the printed dateline, “TEL AVIV, Israel, May 1”, corroborated by the article’s own reference to May Day celebrations stopping that evening, and the year by the Rhodes armistice between Israel and Jordan and the Egyptian withdrawal, both of early 1949.

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