Israel

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“An Egyptian spokesman at Gaza charged that the Israelis opened the shooting at 4 a.m. with automatic weapons fire from the Damra sector northeast of Gaza. The spokesman said the Israel’s opened fire later at El Burej, north of Deir El Ballah. The exchange lasted four hours.

An Israeli army spokesman, on the other hand, accused the Egyptians of starting the shooting. He said rifle and machinegun fire was directed at three Israeli outposts in the Kissufim area in the central sector, beginning about 7:30 a.m., and about three hours later rifle and machinegun shots were aimed at Israeli positions in the northern sector.

Meanwhile a sombre mass funeral for 59 Arabs, killed in a heavy cross-shelling Thursday, took place in Gaza. Most of those killed were civilians. Four Israeli’s were killed earlier this week in the Gaza area. The Israeli’s said the Thursday exchange was started by repeated shooting directed at Israeli settlements along the border.

Dispatches from Gaza said that except for the funeral the Gaza inhabitants were going about their business with schools and business places open as usual. The American Southern Baptist mission hospital in Gaza, it was said was continuing its usual operations despite some slight damage from the Thursday shelling.

The Egyptian Red Crescent Hospital, however, was reported more seriously damaged. Nine of the victims of the shelling were said to have been women patients of the hospital.”

Context added by this archive

Fifty-nine dead, most of them civilians, and nine of them women who were patients in a hospital. Each side’s account of who fired first is printed in consecutive paragraphs under the subheading “Each Blames Other,” and the subheading after that is “Business As Usual.”

Cite this clipping

"Israel," Evening Star, 8 April 1956, p. 1. Covering Palestine archive, CP-1956-004. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-1956-004