Tremendous explosions were heard today on the outskirts of Tel Aviv and near Hedera. The section of Tel Aviv in which the explosion occurred was immediately cordoned off by the police. It is believed that an ammunition store of an illegal group blew up.
Leaflets calling for civil disobedience were distributed here today by the Irgun Zvai Leumi, extremist Jewish underground group. The leaflets also urged Jewish non-cooperation with the Palestine Government and the establishment of a Provisional Jewish National Government. The leaflets declared that promises made by Britain were “empty words” and concluded that “this struggle for life and death is for a last hope–the only hope.”
Seven Jews have been arrested and police are still searching for other members of the armed groups who dynamited three trains in Palestine yesterday, it was officially announced here today. A Government spokesman declared the sabotage to be the work of a Jewish organization, which is believed to be the Irgun Zvai Laumi.
British military planes were flying today over the main Lydda-Tel Aviv, Lydda-Jerusalem, and Lydda-Haifa lines where the attacks occurred, in an attempt to locate the terrorists. Armored care, Bran gun carriers and hundreds of troops of the British Sixth Airborne Division were rushed to the scene last night and commenced a search throughout the Lydda district. The wrecked trains were still blocking through traffic to Cairo this morning.
On the Tel Aviv line the train was stopped by a passenger pulling the emergency cord. When the engineer brought the train to a stop a group of twenty-five to thirty armed men in Arab clothes surrounded the train. The Jewish engineer and his Arab assistant were ordered out of the cab, and the 200 Arab and Jewish passengers were forced to alight and scatter into the nearby fields. A container of dynamite was thrown into the locomotive and set off. The resulting explosion set afire the five passenger coaches and only the mail pouches were saved from the blaze, which continued for several hours.
On the Haifa line, the train was also halted by a passenger and the locomotive was sent rolling over a land mine after the train crew and passengers had been removed. An Arab policeman who resisted was shot and wounded. The Jerusalem train was stopped by a young boy in Arab clothes who was standing on the track waving a red signal flag. A group of fifteen armed Jews captured the train and destroyed it.
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.
