Violence Unabated in Palestine

Violence continued unabated in various parts of Palestine today, marked by five manhole explosions in Tel Aviv, the slaying of an Arab in a Jewish quarter of Jerusalem and stoning of 6 Jews near the Jaffa Gate. A number of telephone conduits were affected by the Tel Aviv explosions, but full extent of the damage was not immediately ascertained.

The fatal shooting of an Arab in the Mea Shearim quarter of Jerusalem this morning precipitated a spurt of military and police activity. Troops and constables threw a cordon around the section while other soldiers and police engaged in a house-to-house search for arms and suspects. Men and women in the Mea Shearim and neighboring Jewish quarters were rounded up and subjected to search.

Apparently in retaliation for the Mea Shearim shooting, Arab crowds stoned 6 Jews at the Jaffa Gate in Jerusalem.

Meanwhile, troops pressed operations against Arab rebels, killing 14 in an engagement with a large band in the vicinity of Kalkillia. Royal Air Force planes assisted in the battle, the biggest in months. At the same time, Arab villagers south of Nablus, who had been terrorized for the past year by rebel marauders, captured, disarmed and turned over to the police a gang of 12 terrorists headed by Mahfouz Ali and Abdul Mejid.

The military authorities today lifted the ban on Jewish buses in Jerusalem, imposed in punishment for alleged Jewish violence last week. The ban on night operation of Jewish cafes was also lifted. No mention was made, however, of reopening Jewish cinemas.

The Jewish National Council issued a statement protesting to the Palestine authorities against the “revenge system” of collective punishments and mass arrests of Jews, pointing out the distinction between an Arab leadership actively conducting terrorism and a Jewish leadership consistently opposing violence. The Council charged that if the Government, which was fully aware of the difference between the two leaderships, nevertheless employed severe punishments against the Jewish populace, “it is aimed solely to break Palestine Jewry’s united opposition to the White Paper policy, but it is bound to fail.”

The Council announced formation of a Supreme Economic Committee representing Palestine Jewry, with its first meeting scheduled for today. The Jewish Farmers’ Association, to which three of the committee’s 22 seats have been allotted, stated in a letter that it would not participate until establishment of the Emergency Committee.