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Communists Provoke Street Clash in Tel Aviv; Attacked by Angry Crowd

October 9, 1961
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Several young Communists were under arrest today as the result of a clash which developed when they tried to distribute leaflets demanding an investigation into the recent border incidents in which five Arab youths were killed in clandestine efforts to sneak over the border into the Egyptian held Gaza Strip.

The leaflets, which contained photographs of the bodies of the five Arab youths and a demand for a committee to determine whether their slayings were “crime or accident,” were signed by the “Movement of Defenders of Democracy,” a Communist-sponsored student group.

Distribution was started as thousands of Tel Aviv residents started coming out of movie houses after the late performance. The angry crowd began to attack the distributors and police moved in. They detained some of the distributors on a charge of circulating illegal material. Hundreds of the leaflets were piled up and set afire on pavements.

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