Police today are searching for an unidentified youth who may be the person who left a small but powerful home-made time bomb in the Merkaz movie house here yesterday afternoon. The youth was seen dawdling in the theater following the afternoon show. An artist’s sketch drawn from the descriptions of witnesses has been distributed to police. The bomb consisted of 700 grams of gelignite, a detonator and timing mechanism set to go off during last night’s 10 p.m. performance, the latest and usually the most crowded of the day.
Since last October’s bombing attempt by El Fatah terrorists in the Zion Cinema in Jerusalem, all Israeli theaters are inspected by civil defense wardens before each performance and a sharp look-out is kept for persons carrying suspicious parcels. The Merkaz theater bomb was found in the last row and was small enough to have been smuggled into the theater in the culprit’s pocket. But it was sufficiently powerful, according to the police, to have caused severe damage and probably casualties within a radius of five to 10 yards, had it exploded.
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