For a week members of the Stern gang, who haunt the Galina café on Tel Aviv's Herbert Samuel Esplanade, had been telling correspondents that they intended to deal with Count Folke Bernadotte. Posters appeared showing Bernadotte's gaunt figure, his hair flying, being kicked out of Israel by a huge boot. The caption read: "Advice to Agent Bernadotte: Get out of our country!"
It was not only the "Fighters for the Freedom of Israel" (as the Stern gangsters like to call themselves) who had inveighed against the U.N. mediator. The Communists (whose line the Sternists follow) called Bernadotte a "traveling agent of American business." Foreign Minister Moshe Shertok accused him of partiality to the Arabs, and Prime Minister Ben-Gurion himself snapped: "The truce is an act of war designed to break our will."
"I Must Take Risks." Bernadotte, a courageous and stubborn man, was not deterred by the country's temper. Last week he reported on conditions in Jerusalem. "It's like this," he said. "Both Arabs and Jews are trigger-happy. They shoot into the dark at night. They snipe by daylight. Excuse me, but it is a most idiotic thing."
Nevertheless he went to Jerusalem for one more inspection tour before leaving for Paris. When his aide, Swedish General Aage Lundström, suggested that he take a detour to avoid snipers, Bernadotte said: "I must take the same risks as my observers." Near Jerusalem's Hebrew University, his car was hit by an irregular's bullet. Said he: "I do not like irregulars, and I do not like to be shot at."
A few minutes later, in Jerusalem's Katamon quarter (formerly an Arab residential district, now held by Israeli forces), the Count's cream-colored Chrysler was stopped at a roadblock. From a jeep stepped two men in Israeli army uniforms, carrying Sten guns. While U.S. Colonel Frank Begley (a U.N. observer who drove the Count's car) grappled with one of the men, the other looked into the car, recognized the Count, shoved his gun through the window and started shooting. The bullets went straight through the ribbons on Bernadotte's uniform. Said General Lundstrom, who sat beside him but escaped injury: "There was a considerable amount of blood on his clothes, mainly around his heart."
Also hit (17 times) was Colonel Andre P. Serot, a French member of the U.N. truce mission. He was killed instantly. Bernadotte, still breathing, was rushed to nearby Hadassah Hospital, where he died. The assailants got away in their jeep.
"Life Has Been Cheap." For hours following the assassination, there was only stunned silence. Then Sternists were heard from: "We executed Bernadotte, who served as an overt agent of the British enemy . . . Such be the end of all enemies of Jewish freedom . . ." Said the Israel government: "Appalling crime . . . desecration of the Holy City . . . insane gunmen . . ."