Despite raids by Palestine police seeking terrorists on many homes in Jerusalem, during which some arrests were made, the Jewish residents of Palestine passed a fairly uneventful Sabbath, marred only by the discovery of the bodies of two Jews in deserted lanes off Jerusalem’s main streets.
The first body discovered was dressed in a British police uniform, which led the authorities to believe that he was one of the participants in the raid on Jerusalem police headquarters on Thursday evening, who had died from wounds suffered during the gun battle with police. The raiders all wore police uniforms. He was identified as Asher Ben-Zion, a watchmaker believed to have been a member of the Irgun Zvai Leumi, underground Jewish military group. The other body, which was tentatively identified as that of a youth named “Benjamin,” was found encased in a sack. Police are investigating the circumstances of his death.
Meanwhile, the Jewish quarters of Jerusalem and Haifa, and all of Tel Aviv were under a strict curfew extending from 5 P.M. to 5 A.M. Police announced that the death penalty for possession of illegal arms and other offenses had been revived. It has not been in force since 1940. It is believed that the curfew, which is being enforced strictly, will not be lifted until after March 31, to guard against further outbreaks on that day, when the White Paper ban on Jewish immigration becomes effective.
So rigid is the curfew that even military personnel are barred from the streets after 5 P.M. unless they are on official business. When the curfew was first imposed Friday night, it caught many Jews at services in the synagogues. Some of these were arrested on their way home, but were subsequently released. Throughout most of Jerusalem and in Tel Aviv and the Jewish quarters of Haifa, synagogues were closed today and yesterday for the first time since the curfew during the Arab disturbances in 1937 and worshippers were compelled to remain in their homes. Jews living in the Old City, where the curfew has not been imposed, are not affected, and were even able to conduct the usual Friday evening services at the Wailing Wall.
JEWISH GROUPS CONDEMN TERRORISTIC ACTIVITIES
Official Jewish bodies, including the Tel Aviv Municipal Council and the Jerusalem Jewish Community, today issued statements denouncing the terrorists responsible for the coordinated bombing of police stations in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Jaffa and Haifa, causing the death of a number of British and Palestinian police officials and damaging private property to the extent of $500,000 in Jerusalem alone.
An official communique issued by the Palestine Administration says that three British police officials, including John Scott, Assistant Superintendent of Police, were killed when the bombs exploded in Jerusalem police headquarters. Two British policemen were found dead when demolition squads began removing debris from the completely demolished southern wing of the Jaffa police headquarters. Three policemen were also killed in the Haifa explosion. One policeman died of wounds in Tel Aviv. A number of police and civil officials were injured in the Jerusalem explosion and it took three hours to dig them out from the debris of the demolished police headquarters building.
The police also announced the arrest of Jacob Solemon Freyman, a resident of near Rachel’s Tomb when an automatic pistol with twenty-four rounds of ammunition were found on him. Three unexploded bombs were also discovered in the Arab cemetery at Mamillah Road, in the center of the city, not far from the American Legation.
MAIN STREET IN JERUSALEM LOOKS LIKE LONDON DURING “BLITZ”
The most spectacular of the series of blasts set off by the terrorists occurred in the heart of Jerusalem. The city’s shopping district looks like London during the height of the Blitz. Within a radius of 200 yards from the Russian Compound, a section in the center of the city, hardly a plate glass window was left intact. Shop signs had been blasted away, several stores were completely gutted and the streets were covered with a blanket of shattered glass.
Along Jaffa Road and Princess Street, not far from the demolished police headquarters, proprietors, shop clerks and laborers were occupied sweeping up glass fragments and splinters, cleaning up stock knocked about by the blast and trying to put their establishments in shape to resume business. Hundreds of gaping spectators cluttered up the streets inspecting the evidences of the force of the explosions. Many merchants not protected by riot insurance will not be able to obtain compensation. There is an acute shortage of glass in Palestine, particularly plate glass, and replacement will be most difficult.
The approaches to the Russian Compound, in which the wrecked police headquarters is located, remained cordoned off, British police diverting all traffic from the vicinity while a search was made for further unexploded bombs. Two gaping holes in the thick concrete walls of the headquarters building furnished grim proof of the force of the explosions, which also did considerable damage within the building as well as to other buildings in the Compound.
JERUSALEM HEADQUARTERS RAIDED BY TERRORISTS IN POLICE UNIFORM
The raid on the police headquarters in Jerusalem was the most daring operation undertaken by the terrorists, whom the authorities identified as members of the “Stern Gang” which is fighting for the abrogation of the White Paper and for free Jewish immigration to Palestine. The terrorists, wearing police uniforms, gained access to the building through a ladder. They killed a senior police officer who was on duty and who attempted to resist them, and they placed the bombs which subsequently exploded wrecking the building and rattling the windows in the center of the city for a mile around.
In Haifa, the bombs exploded in the local police headquarters about the same hour when the explosions took place in Jerusalem. In Jaffa four sacks of gelignite were found stacked up against the wall of the local police headquarters which were immediately evacuated. Later, however, a series of explosions wrecked three floors in the southern end of the building. A police patrol challenged three suspects who opened fire, wounding one constable. Two of the suspects are believed to have been wounded.
POLICE AND TERRORISTS BATTLE IN TEL AVIV
In Tel Aviv, the bombing of the police station was proceeded by a series of attacks against British police officers which resulted in the fatal shooting of one. Two others were critically wounded. The attacks in Tel Aviv took place in different
The Jewish press today carries editorials condemning the terrorists. “These outrages are not part of the Yishuv’s fight for national upbuilding and there is nothing that can justify them,” the leading Hebrew newspaper Davar writes. Other papers published editorials in a similar vein.
The Council of the Histadruth which is now meeting in Tel Aviv, unanimously adopted a resolution sharply condemning the perpetrators of the outrages and demanding that “the public take strong measures against those staining the honor of the Yishuv and endangering its cause.” article>
Dr. Chaim Weizmann, World Zionist leader, today sharply condemned the outbreaks in Palestine, declaring that “we will have to pay for them, although we abhor them.”
Addressing the annual conference of the British Mizrachi Organization, Dr. Weizmann discussing the terroristic disturbances said that “I am extremely sorry and disquieted. We strongly condemn such un-Jewish methods and the Yishur joins with us is our condemnation. We will have to pay for them, although we abhor them as much as anybody else,” Rabbi Jacob Fishman, Mizrechi leader, who is in London as one of the three-man Jewish Agency delegation, told the meeting that the terrorists were “criminals, but the Palestine Administration has caused their desperate mood.”
Reporting on the general political situation in regard to Palestine, Dr. Weizmann said that it is not likely that the British Government will make any decisions on the question in the near future. He stressed that the Biltmore Declaration, which asks the reconstitution of Palestine as a Jewish Commonwealth, was not a new policy.
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