A solution of the mystery of the Yadjur murder outrage, (which occurred on Sunday evening, April 5th when several Jewish workers returning from Haifa to the Labour Settlement at Yadjur where they lived, were ambushed and shot dead), may be expected within 48 hours, Police Superintendent Partridge told the J.T.A. here today.
The Superintendent bases his belief on the arrest of the three Bedouins, which was made a fortnight ago, by a detachment of 150 British and Palestine Police who surrounded their camp near Jeddeh. They were arrested on suspicion of having been concerned in the murders, but now the suspicion has been strengthened by the discovery of concealed arms in a cave which the suspects are believed to have used.
The outrage was immediately followed by the arrest of several Arabs belonging to the Arab village of Yadjur, near the Jewish settlement, and the police issued a statement that their information went to show that the Jews had been the innocent victims of an Arab feud, and that the outrage was neither anti-Jewish nor in any way political. About a fortnight later, Saleh Shubain, belonging to an Arab village near Safed, a member of the notorious band of brigands headed by Ahmed Tapish, which operated extensively in the Safed district during and after the 1929 massacres, was arrested, and a further police statement was issued, which tended to suggest that the Jews had fallen as innocent victims of a gun-men’s feud. Shubain’s brother, it was stated, was swaiting execution for the murder of a Druse family in Mount Carmel. He threatened to avenge his brother’s death by killing the inhabitants of the villages from which the witnesses against his brother came. The village was, however, carefully guarded by villagers and police, and the gangsters, returning baffled, with murder in their hearts, suddenly encountered a cart of singing Jews and emptied into them their rifles, which had been intended to avenge the imminent death of their kinsman.
The Jews were not satisfied, however, with the explanation. “The murderers have not yet been definitely traced,” the Palestine Labour daily, “Davar” wrote. “The cause for alarm which the attack at Yadjur gave to all Jewish settlements still holds good. Meanwhile attempts are made to explain and explain away the gruesome incident in a variety of fashions, each calculated to obscure the issue.”
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.
