Palestine Tax Office Bombed; Jewish Policeman Killed; Three Britons, One Arab Injured

A Jewish policeman was killed and four other persons were injured today when a bomb demolished the Palestine Government tax office. The four include a British Army captain, a lance corporal, a British police sergeant and an Arab policeman. The blast shattered windows for a mile around.

According to several eye witnesses, three men, two wearing overalls and one dressed in business clothes, entered the building at 3 p.m. carrying a rectangular wooden box which the witnesses mistook for a tool case. After they deposited it on a staircase, one of the three approached an Arab clerk and said: “This is a mine. Get out.” The three men escaped in a taxicab.

The police arrived on the scene a few minutes before the blast. At first they tried to pull the mine out with ropes, but then, realizing it was about to explode, they withdrew a safe distance and detonated the mine with four shots from a Bren gun.

A police announcement today said that yesterday’s explosion near the Jewish Agency building damaged a passing armored police car, but that none of the police were injured. One suspect detained in connection with the explosion was discovered to be an escaped patient from a Jewish mental institution and was returned there.

Posters signed by the Irgun Zvai Leumi were placed on walls in Tel Aviv last night declaring that the Irgun will end “all unified action” with the Haganah. “Haganah put the clock back two years when Irgun leaders were persecuted,” said the leaflets. “But this time Irgun will not be silenced. We have cooperated with Haganah long enough. Now we are betrayed. We will reply with bullets.”