In an attempt to break a siege of some 4,000 Jews beleagured in the Old City of Jerusalem for the past week, the Irgun today carried out its second bomb attack within a week on a group of Arabs blocking off the gates to the Old City.
The attack was made against Arab positions at the Jaffa Gate, main portal to the Old City, by five young Yemenite Jews in an armored car which they had stolen from the Jewish Settlement Police. Fifteen Arabs were killed and 43 were wounded. None the raiders escaped; three were killed by the police and two were wounded and ##ptured.The force of the blast was so terrific that it destroyed the fronts of several houses in the vicinity and damaged the Gate itself, studding it with bomb linters. The attackers then swung around and attacked their secondary target, the Arab Piccadilly Cafe, with hand grenades. This phase of the action was unsuccessful the missles fell short of their mark.
POLICE AND JEWS BATTLE IN MOSLEM CEMETERY
For an as yet unexplained reason the armored car halted its dash toward Zion square, the center of the Jewish section of Jerusalem, a few minutes short of its {SPAN}##al{/SPAN} and the five Jews ran for cover into a nearby Moslem cemetery. In the resulting battle, with the Jews and the police firing at each other from behind tombstones, the three Jews were killed and the other two were captured. One Briton was reported hounded.
The dead Irgunists are Ephraim Levin, Shimon Levi and Nissim Ben Haim. The captured Jews are Uri Cohen and David Hizrachi. All of them are believed to have seen about 20 years old.
Jerusalem was the scene of several other battles this morning as Arab snipers ambushed a Jewish bus near the Sanhedria quarter. As Jewish defense units answered the Arab fire, reinforcements were rushed to the snipers from Arab quarters and there was a lengthy exchange of shots. Two Jews were seriously wounded.
In the Sheikh Jarach quarter snipers opened fire on houses in the nearby Jewish section and were answered by the Haganah. The Haganah was forced to launch a full-scale counterattack when two platoons of British infantry stationed in the area refused to intervene.
Hanna Zutta, 24, was killed while aiding three wounded Jewish fighters. When the British continued to maintain their “hands off” policy, an armored Red Mogen David ambulance drove up and first aid men picked up the wounded while bullets whined overhead.
At the suburb of Mekor Hayim, which has been subjected to a number of Arab attacks within the past 36 hours, the Haganah repulsed the latest attack, suffering one casualty.
One British soldier was killed and one wounded in the center of the city. It is believed that the Stern Group is responsible for the action.
A convoy on route to the Negev with supplies for Isolated settlements was attacked by a band of Arabs. Although the raiders were not discouraged for three hours the Jews suffered no injury. Near Acre Arabs shot and killed Joseph Fogel, 38, who was motorcycling and wounded a companion.
SAFAD SIEGE LIFTED AFTER FOUR DAYS; HAGANAH BRINGS SUPPLIES
The siege of Safad was lifted last night by the Baganah which broke through road blocks and brought food, medicine and fuel to the Jews of the Upper Galilee town who had been virtually cut off from the rest of the world for four days.
A train proceeding from Lydda to Jerusalem was halted a short distance from Jerusalem by huge boulders on the track. As the engineer brought his train to a halt Arab bandits opened fire. An escort of British soldiers forced the Arabs to flee, ?t the train returned to Lydda.
Several heavy attacks were launched last night against Jewish positions on the border of Tel Aviv by Arabs from the adjoining village of Abu Kebir and the ?anshieh quarter. They were beaten back with severe losses. No Jews were injured. The raiders used mortars and automatic weapons in the opening stages of their assault.
BRITISH POLICE WILL BE WITHDRAWN FROM ARAB AREAS
Meanwhile, the government today announced several new security measures aimed at keeping the governmental machinery operating in the larger cities of Palestine, particularly Jerusalem. British policemen will be withdrawn from Arab areas and will be replaced by Arab policemen under command of British police officers and army personnel.
The British police evacuated from Arab quarters will be placed on duty in an enlarged protected zone of Jerusalem and will be used to provide escorts and guards for Jewish and Arab government employees and placed on duty in mixed residential sections. The central post office, which has been hamstrung for several days because of the refusal of workers to report for duty without adequate protection, is expected to be back in full operation within a few days. In addition, at the Lydda airfield the army will take over police duties to release more police for Jerusalem.
The Palestine Agudas Israel is negotiating for the establishment and maintenance of separate Orthodox units within the Jewish defense force, Jacob Landau, a Leader of the Palestine Agudah, reported to a nation-wide conference of Orthodox Zionists. He declared that scores of thousands of young nudists would fight for the Jewish state if the new state will comply with the ## of the Torah and if legal guarantees safeguarding the rights of traditional Judaism are incorporated into the framework of the country’s constitution.
A Sternist clandestine broadcast claimed that the Arab guerrillas are being assisted by “Serbian fascists from (the late General) Mikhailovic’s army, soldiers of (General Wladislaw) Anders’ Second Polish Corps, and members of the British Union of Fascists and escaped German prisoners of war.”
FORMER GESTAPO COLLABORATOR EXECUTED BY IRGUNISTS
The bullet-ridden body of Simcha Baumblatt, 26, was found in Ramath Gan this morning. The Irgun announced that it had executed him after it had learned that he had worked for the Gestapo in Europe and later served the British as an informer on the Irgun, of which he was a member. His connection with the Gestapo we revealed after he was recognized by recent immigrants who were former neighbors in Europe.
A Heganah intelligence officer told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that the command staff of Jerusalem Arab bands was meeting at the Semiramis Hotel two hours before the Haganah blew it up yesterday. Only a technical delay saved the Arab leaders because the Jewish attack had been planned to coincide with the Arab parley.
The same source stated that one of the rooms in the hotel was used as an arsenal. It was also learned that the damages in the blasting of the Arab National Committee’s headquarters in Jaffa were so severe because an ammunition and explosives cache la the building’s cellar went off after the external explosion set off by the Sternists.
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.
