A major engagement between 3,000 British troops under the personal command of Major-General Robert Haining, commander-in-chief of British forces in Palestine, and the combined Arab rebel bands of the “bloody triangle” sector was being fought tonight in the vicinity of Nablus. Extent of casualties on both sides was not immediately ascertained.
The battle, being bitterly waged over a wide front, marked the first time since outbreak of the Arab rebellion in 1936 that such large forces have come to grips.
The hottest fighting was reported between the villages of Imrin and Kafraja, near Nablus. The Arab bands, under the leadership of Abdul Rahim Haj Ibrahim, were using new tactics in which detachments cut across hills and attacked the troops from the rear.
The engagement developed from searches by troops, begun at the crack of dawn, for the band which yesterday afternoon raided Barclay’s bank in Nablus and escaped with $30,000. Nablus has been put under indefinite curfew.
BAND NETTED $30,000 IN BOLD RAID
Emulating the most approved American gangster technique a band of twelve Arabs had swooped down upon the local branch of the bank, scooped up the booty and vanished into the surrounding hills before troops and police could go into action.
The band leader, according to eyewitness accounts, posted guards at both ends of the street on which the bank is located. While the guards barred all traffic, the leader and one other bandit drove up to the bank’s rear door in a car without license plates, threatened the Arab cashier and forced him to hand over all the cash in the place. The pair then leaped into the waiting car and sped off.
Troops quickly surrounded the entire city and began a house-to-house search, while all merchants locked up their shops and the entire populace fled to their homes. the troops discovered in the vicinity of the raid a cache of arms and ammunition and arrested four Arabs.
The robbery is understood to have followed a conference of band leaders in the mountain village of Sila, near Jenin, called to discuss the financial needs of the terrorists, at which it was decided to raise $125,000 immediately.
Ten-hour curfew was imposed today on Keren Hateimonim, Jewish quarter in the Jaffa-Tel Aviv boundary area, for failure to meet the first instalment of a $1,250 collective fine assessed against it in connection with disorders there.
A Jew and two British soldiers were wounded in continuing violence. Tuvia Prut, 35, was shot and seriously wounded while driving a car in Jaffa. The soldiers were injured when a land mine blew up an army truck near Jenin.
Eighty certificates remaining of the last immigration schedule were allotted by the Government for urgent cases in Greater Germany. The certificates were sent to the British consuls in Berlin and Vienna for distribution.
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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.
