A British Broadcasting Corporation broadcast today said the Italian air raid on Tel Aviv was apparently a mistake and that the aviators had intended to bomb the neighboring port city of Jaffa.
“To point to the apparent mistake in their target,” the broadcast said, “the Italian airmen also showered leaflets in Arabic on Tel Aviv before they flew over Jaffa and headed out to the sea.”
(A message of the official Italian wireless, picked up by the Columbia Broadcasting System in New York, said the raid “was the most important carried out by Italian aircraft in this war.” The broadcast said: “The Italian attack was not carried out against the city of Jaffa but against the port and the oil depots. The Italian bombers carried out repeated attacks on these objectives, dropping super-high-explosive bombs of the heaviest type, which caused great fires and terrific explosions.”)
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.