AS the last hours of the British mandate in Palestine waned, the newly-proclaimed Jewish state of `Israel` ... warned its citizens to be prepared for the possibility of invasion or air raids. Less than 100 miles away, the Egyptian and Arab Armies stood ready to invade Palestine the instant the mandate ended at midnight. Earlier had come the dramatic announcement from Cairo that the Egyptian national army would sweep across the southern frontiers of the Holy Land at one minute past midnight a minute after the mandate ended.

This Reuter report confirmed Thursday`s message from Dawn`s Cairo correspondent that the Egyptian and Arab Armies would enter Palestine as soon as the mandate ended.

[Meanwhile, as reported from London,] End of the British mandate in Palestine at midnight tonight [May 14] will give the Arabs `the opportunity, which they have never had until now, of resisting the invaders face to face and without the intervention of the foreign Power which has hitherto given them its protection, the Arab Office in London declared today.

The office is the Arab main channel of propaganda in Britain.