British troop installations throughout Palestine are being brought up to full strength in anticipation of large-scale action against the Jewish underground, which, according to reliable reports, will be launched next week to coincide with a British Government announcement of policy.
High Commissioner Sir Alan Cunningham is understood to have conferred yesterday with Lieut. Gen. Sir Evelyn Barker, retiring British commander in Palestine, who left today for Cairo. The security situation in the country is reported to have been the subject of their discussions.
Barker is scheduled to meet tonight in Cairo with his successor, Maj. Gen. G.H.A. Mac Millan, and Gen. Sir Miles Dempsey, British commander in the Middle East.
GRUNER GIVEN INDEFINITE REPRIEVE PENDING ACTION BY PRIVY COUNCIL
As his last official act before leaving, Barker announced that he had given an indefinite reprieve to Dov Gruner, pending action by the Privy Council on the appeal filed in London by attorney Max Seligman, acting for the condemned Irgunist’s uncle, Frank Gruner of New York.
(Gruner’s sister, Mrs. Helen Friedman, who had been delayed in New York by bad flying weather for almost a week, arrived in Eire today on route to Palestine. She was expected to resume her journey tonight.)
The threat of violence between anti-terrorist forces and the extremists grew tonight with the reported kidnapping by the Hashomer Hatzair, left-wing labor group, of Israel Gubani, 20, who is reputed to be a member of the Irgun. The kidnapping presumably is in reprisal for the attack on a Hashomer Hatzair club in Tel Aviv last night, during which two members were injured, and the simultaneous firing of a Hashomer Hatzair headquarters in Rehovoth.
IRGUN AND HESHOMER HATZAIR KIDNAP EACH OTHER’S MEMBERS
Following the kidnapping, an anonymous caller telephoned all newspapers in Tel Aviv, disclosing the abduction of Gubani, who was seized in Rehovoth, and revealing that two Hashomer Hatzair members had been kidnapped in reprisal.
The Irgun secret radio tonight called on Jewish youth to take up arms since “Jewish leaders have given up the struggle. They went to London, and what did they receivel” the broadcast asked. “The Bevin plan, which provides for a Jewish ghetto in an Anglo-Arab state.” It warned that the British “contemplate the destruction of the spirit of Jewish resistance, which, however, is stronger than steel,” The broadcast urged the young Jews of Palestine not to fear martial law, “since the Palestine Government contemplates even worse measures.”
The military authorities announced that they will pay compensation to persons evicted from houses and apartments in the recently established security zones. Previously, the army had maintained that the evictions were caused by terrorist action, and, therefore, the Jews themselves were responsible.
The Arab press reports that Fewri Bay Kaukaji, who led Arab terrorist gangs in the riots of 1936-38 has returned to Palestine. He fled before the outbreak of the war to secape capture by the British.
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