Arabs today answered with bullets, bombs and the torch the Government’s dramatic plea, contained in leaflets scattered early this morning from military planes flying low over strife-torn Palestine, that they discontinue their general strike and the campaign of terrorism which since April 19 has claimed upwards of 100 lives.
British troops retorted with a relentless drive that added seven more Arabs to the rapidly mounting toll of deaths.
A detachment of Seaforth Highlanders, attacked by armed Arab bands in the dangerous Nablus hills, engaged them in a sharp battle that lasted from ten o’clock in the morning until three in the afternoon. Four Arabs were slain and three wounded. The troops captured three rifles, a bomb and some ammunition.
Simultaneously another band of Arabs attacked a part of the Seaforth detachment three kilometers away, near Akraba, suffering two killed and one wounded. A British corporal was seriously wounded in the engagement. Three rifles were seized by the troops.
Earlier a band of Arabs twice attacked a convoy between Ras Amar and Kfar Saba. Troops and aircraft repelled the raiders, killing one Arab and wounding three.
During the night troops and police beat off a band of Arabs who attacked the Jewish settlement of Ataroth and killed one of its defenders, Chaim Golovitzky, 40, in the first volley. The battle lasted two and a half hours. Golovitzky was the forty-first Jew to die in the Arab disorders.
Arabs twice attacked Rishon-le-Zion, one of the oldest Jewish colonies in Palestine and famous for its wines, but were repelled by Jewish special policemen and British troops who were rushed to the scene in lorries.
Meanwhile, soldiers and police pressed a search for arms, ammunition, bombs, dynamite and wire-cutting tools in many Arab villages throughout the country. In ten villages in the vicinity of Jerusalem the search was productive.
All Arab cars passing through Tel Aviv were stopped by police and searched.
A Mills bomb was thrown over a wall into the yard of District Commissioner James Campbell in Jerusalem, exploding but failing to do any damage.
Telephone wires linking Kalkillia and Ras-el-Ein were cut. Snipers fired on military patrols near Ramleh. An Arab patient in a hospital was killed by a stray bullet during a burst of shooting.
A bomb exploded in the customs house at Acre, smashing windows. Communist literature was found at the scene of the explosion.
Low-flying military airplanes early today scattered Arabic leaflets over the strife-torn Holy Land appealing to the Arab populace, in the name of common sense, to halt the general strike and terrorism.
The leaflets promise that if the strike is dropped and peace is restored, a Royal Commission will immediately come to investigate Palestine problems.
“This opportunity must not be lost,” the leaflets conclude, “therefore cease striking and stop the terror.”
Two Jewish policemen were honored today by Inspector Roy G. Spicer for arresting the murderer of Eliezer Bichutzki, slain in the April 19 attack on Jews in Jaffa, and for having prevented the bombing of the Jaffa police station. A Jewish corporal and a sergeant were also honored for valor in connection with the disorders.
Addressing a tea party given him by the Haifa Municipal Council, High Commissioner Sir Arthur Grenfell Wauchope said he was determined to take military and other measures until security of person and property had been fully restored.
The official Gazette disclosed today that 137 more Arab villages and 14 Jewish suburbs of Jerusalem are scheduled for collective punishment in connection with the disorders.
Fires that broke out in the Manshieh quarter of Tel Aviv and in a storeroom of the Government school at Beersheba were extinguished by the police before they did much damage.
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.
