יומנים > יומן - מלא 26/01/1948

Monday, 26 January 1948

A letter from Alon [Yehuda Arazi] from January 21 reporting on weapon prices: rifle - $ 28, [light] machine gun 500, 75 mm cannon 10,000, a thousand 0.303 bullets - 40, shell for cannon - $ 24. So far he's purchased: 3 Constellation [planes], 5 - C-46 [Commando cargo planes], 5 - BT-13 [Vultee trainer aircraft].

       - The number killed to date (since the riots began in late November) is 1,424. Of these: 408 Jews, 950 Arabs, 12 British police officers, 35 soldiers, 19 other civilians. Wounded: 2,175, of these 749 Jews, 1,300 Arabs, 37 British police officers, 76 British soldiers, 13 others.

       - Avraham Rutenberg [director of the electric company] and Bar-Kochba [Meirovitz] came to ask whether to partner with the British company Sky-Ways regarding Eretz-Israeli flight paths. The British "Netivei HaRaki'a" ["ways of the sky" - Ben-Gurion's Hebrew translation] are prepared to invest 1/3 capital and have 1/3 of the management, and to lease large aircraft for company purposes. I voiced my opinion that if partnering with them doesn't close the door to partnering with others (Americans, Czech) - then there's no harm. On the contrary. The company plans to operate the following routes beginning in February: Lod-Paris, Lod-New York, Lod-Athens-Rome, Lod-Cyprus, Lod-Haifa. - If only.

       Storer (of the Lod airfield) remarked that our airplanes need to be careful: They can [they're allowed to] airdrop food and medicine [over settlements], but not leaflets over Arab villages.

       - Zabrasky, Shkolnik [Eshkol], and Kozlowski [Sapir] came to see me in the evening regarding the Negev. The plan is for fortifications, 600 men, armoring, and vehicles - P£ 125,000; of this, KKL is allocating P£ 25,000, and Weitz is lending the [Jewish] Agency P£ 64,000, to be repaid by the end of the year; Solel Boneh is lending P£ 25,000, to be repaid beginning in August by the end of the year; HaMashbir is lending P£ 11,000 on the same terms. I wrote about this to Kaplan.