The week-end quiet was blasted tonight when an army truck manned by members of the Arab Legion was blown up on the Haifa-Acre road, injuring two troopers. Earlier, police uncovered mines here and in Haifa.
The relative quiet which has prevailed since Friday’s outbreaks is not regarded by even the most optimistic sources as an indication that the extremists have decided to lay low until the United Nations acts on Palestine. Large-scale action is expected within the next few days, as soon as the Irgun Zvai Leumi has completed its plans.
Meanwhile, the recent executions and the confirmation of the death sentences of two other youths has made a large section of the Jewish community look with greater sympathy on the activities of the extremists. Even the Jewish Agency and the Jewish National Council, which have condemned terrorism in no uncertain terms, have been forced to appeal for clemency for the doomed Irgunists. An Agency spokesman, explaining this move today, said that it was made “solely on security grounds.”
Max Levitzky, an attorney who has represented several of the Irgunists, is reported tonight to have gone to Rehovoth to urge Dr. Chaim Weizmann to appeal to the High Commissioner for clemency. Rumors that Moshe Barazani and Meir Feinstein, the condemned men, have been shifted from Jerusalem to the Acre prison, where Gruner and his companions were executed were denied today by the authorities. They said that two other prisoners had been transferred, but declined to give their names.
Fearful of the official repercussions which are certain to follow any new large-scale outbreaks, Chief Rabbis Isaac Herzog and Ben Zion Usiel last night appealed to the dissidents “not to play into the hands of those seeking to destroy the Yishuv. Do not indulge in acts of revenge and thereby bring disaster to the Yishuv,” they added.
The death in the hospital of one of the policemen injured in Tel Aviv on Friday during the attack on a British armored personnel carrier brought to three the toll of Friday’s outbreaks. A sentry was killed at Nathanya and one of the extrem?its died a few hours after the attack. His body, which had been placed in the morgue of Hadassah Hospital in Tel Aviv, was stolen last night.
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