The hope of the Palestine police to track down the murderers of the Jewish workers who were shot on the Haifa road on April 5th. while they were returning to their home in the Yadjur Labour Settlement, has not been fulfilled, despite all investigations and detentions.
No trace has been found either of the two Jewish hikers, Stahl and Zohar, who left Tel Aviv several months ago on a walking tour and have not been heard of since.
The police are offering a reward of £200 for information leading to the detection of the Yadjur murderers, and £20 for information about the fate of the hikers.
A solution of the Yadjur murder mystery may be expected within 48 hours, Police Superintendent Partridge told the J.T.A. in Jerusalem on August 18th., basing his belief on the arrest of three Bedouins, which was made a fortnight previously by a detachment of 150 British and Palestine Police who surrounded their camp near Jeddah. They were arrested on suspicion of having been concerned in the murders, but the suspicion had been strengthened by the discovery of concealed arms in a cave which the suspects are believed to have used.
The outrage was immediately followed in the early part of April by the arrest of several Arabs belonging to the Arab village of Yadjur, near the Jewish settlement, and the police issued a statement that their information went to show that the Jews had been the innocent victims of an Arab feud, and that the outrage was neither anti-Jewish nor in any way political. About a fortnight later, Saleh Shubain, belonging to an Arab village near Safed, a member of the notorious band of brigands headed by Ahmed Tapish, which operated extensively in the Safed district during and after the 1929 massacres, was arrested, and a further police statement was issued, which tended to suggest that the Jews had fallen as innocent victims of a gun-men’s feud.
The Jews have not been satisfied by any of the police statements. “The murderers have not yet been definitely traced”, the Palestine Labour daily “Davar” wrote at the time the first arrests were made. “The cause for alarm which the attack at Yadjur gave to all Jewish settlements still holds good. Attempts are being made to explain and explain away the gruesome incident in a variety of fashions, each calculated to obscure the issue”.
Only recently, the “Doar Hayom” wrote:
The police are most energetic. They seek the Yadjur murderers in Bedouin camps and elsewhere. They despatch aeroplanes to reconnoitre over the Tulkarem district to find the two hikers, Stahl and Zohar, who suddenly disappeared off the face of the earth and announce a £20 reward to anyone who will offer information leading to their disappearance. Unfortunately, all this has led to nothing. It is regrettable that the murderers did not choose to remain on take the necessary time as the police might have decided to take the necessary steps for rounding them up. But by the time three months had elapsed it was possible not merely to have disappeared. All traces and clues, too, must have been thoroughly lost. We cannot shut our eyes to such a state of affairs. Those responsible for public security in Palestine are expected to provide us with proper protection. We are tired of protracted conferences and explanations. The police must act in such a way that murderers in Palestine should be discovered without delay.
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