The prominent 40-year-old Sheikh Ali Nuri Hatib, a known foe of the exiled former Mufti of Jerusalem, was shot dead today in the Arab quarter of the Old City, raising to 22 the 24-hour countrywide toll in the current disorders. The Sheikh’s assailant, believed to be an Arab, escaped.
Seven Jews were killed by Arab terrorists in the past 24 hours, according to official count. In addition a wounded Jew died of his injuries. Fourteen Arabs were slain in clashes with British troops. Wounded included 16 Jews and 6 British soldiers. A bomb exploded behind the new Post Office early this afternoon, seriously wounding two Jews.
British police yesterday entered the fashionable Vienna and Europe cafes during the crowded tea time and searched all Jews, including women. Searches of Jews in the city’s streets continue. Lieut. H.G.A. Wavell, son of the former commander of the British troops in Palestine, was wounded yesterday when a land mine exploded under a lorry on the Tulkarem-Nablus road.
Repeated incendiarism in Jewish homes and shops in the mixed quarter of Haifa was climaxed this morning by the setting afire of the plant of Imperial Chemicals Ltd. The fire was discovered before it had made much headway, but had not yet been extinguished this afternoon. Arabs accused a Jewish worker in a flour mill opposite the plant of having set the fire, and he was arrested. Four Jews’ homes, a synagogue and a small flour mill were set afire in Ardil Yahud, a mixed quarter of Haifa. A bomb was thrown on Kingsway, where 28 persons were killed last week in an explosion and subsequent gun battle, but no one was injured. a Jewish Telegraphic Agency correspondent saw from a window two Arabs escaping. Police arrived afterward.
The newly-mobilized Jewish railway guard beat off three attacks on trains near Jerusalem, Ras-el-Ein and Lydda. Eight Zionist-Revisionists in Tel Aviv were interned in the Acre concentration camp. The ulemas (Moslem religious functionaries) in Acre submitted a memorandum to High Commissioner Sir Harold A. MacMichael demanding disarming of Jews, and declaring the partition plan and work of the Palestine Partition Commission were responsible for the Arabs’ fury.
The Arab section of Safed was under 22-hour curfew today when the inhabitants refused to end a general strike. One of the Jewish dead in yesterday’s Haifa bombing, a man named Tobias, has been identified as a former resident of Cardiff, Wales, a director of the Palestine Plate Glass Company, and the husband of Lily Tobias, a well-known novelist.
A Government official arrived in Haifa from Jerusalem and conferred with District Commissioner Bailey and the heads of army, navy and police forces whether to proclaim martial law in the northern district.
The marines’ first action came when a Jewish bus hit a barricade at Balad-es-Sheikh, overturned, was bombed and caught fire. As the passengers escaped from the bus, one of them being slightly injured, marines rushed to the spot and were ambushed by a band hidden in the hills, apparently a well organized body who had been awaiting them. Reinforcements were called.
Leib Hard, 55-year-old district officer in Nazareth, was stabbed and fatally wounded by an Arab while on the way to the railway station to go to his home in Kiriat Motzkin. (He is the Jew who died of his wounds, reported above.) The two Jews wounded in the bombing near the post office are Meir Zilberstein, 30, and Gedaliah Friedman, 28.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
