In the Hills of Hebron

The picture was reminiscent of the terrible black & white mass of photographs that had illustrated the war and the war-crimes trials. It also recalled the fierce word pictures of how Old Testament warriors dealt with their enemies. It showed the mutilated bodies of 35 young Haganah fighters who had been ambushed by Arabs at Kfar Etzion, in the lonely hills of Hebron.

Last week, during a lull in the Palestine fighting, an armored bus under heavy escort headed south from Jerusalem on a mournful errand; it carried the mothers & fathers of the 35 dead to their funeral. The parents stood dry-eyed and solemn as their sons were buried in a common grave on a hillside overlooking the Valley of Fertility. At dawn next day, the uneasy quiet was broken.

A force of 500 Arabs besieged the Jewish settlement of Yehiam in mountainous country near the Lebanese border. Attacking with mortar and machine-gun fire, the khaki-clad Arabs were held off by Jews fighting from the ruins of an ancient crusaders' castle. A British company of the Middlesex Regiment rushed to Yehiam, drove the invaders back.

The Arab attack touched off retaliation and counterretaliation. On the Syrian border, the Haganah dynamited a bridge. Arabs renewed their attacks on Jewish traffic between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, in one ambush killed seven Jews. At week's end, the fighting again abated for a day as Arabs celebrated the birthday of Mohamed. It was an ominous holiday. Throughout the Arab world, mosques reverberated with fiery anti-partition speeches made in the name of the Prophet. On the streets of Damascus, Syrian Boy Scouts sold "Rescue Palestine" buttons. The funds they raised would be used to prepare the full-scale war for which both Arabs and Jews were bracing themselves.

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