The Jewish inhabitants here who have been stocking food for three days in hourly expectation of a new twenty-four-hour curfew, were warned today by the Haganah radio, “Voice of Israel,” to prepare for a second military siege and were urged to resist curfew regulations that may be imposed.
Similar instructions were broadcast by a new secret radio station, “The Voice of Tel Aviv” which went on the air for the first time last night. The broadcast urged the Jews to defy curfew orders by appearing in the streets en masse, and in the event of new searches by the military not to divulge their identity. Exceptions were the mayor, members of the municipality and heads of vital services who might identify themselves.
Traffic on the main street of Tel Aviv was halted last night when Jewish youths threw blue-and-white banners over the wires of the city’s lighting system. Crowds stopped to stare at the banners which bore the symbol of the Irgun Zvai Leumi the outlines of Palestine and Transjordan crossed with a rifle and bayonet.
MAYOR APPEALS TO HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR RELEASE OF “INNOCENTS”
Mayor Israel Rokach sent an urgent appeal during the week-end to the Palestine High Commissioner urging the immediate release of Tel Aviv Jews who were seized during the four-day siege of the city and are still held at the detention camp at Rafa.
“I cannot bear the weeks-long detention of innocents,” the appeal said. “If they are not going to be released, then please arrest me too.”
Apparently impressed by the mayor’s plea, the High Commissioner today ordered the authorities at Rafa to speed up the release of those persons against whom no in criminating evidence has been found. The order specifies that the work of screening the detainees and releasing those who are not suspected of terrorism should be conducted “even on Sundays.”
Moshe Shertok, head of the political department of the Jewish Agency, who is still detained at the Latrun camp, is now spending his time there preparing material for a new Hebrew grammar. Dr. Isaac Gruenbaum, another arrested member of the Jewish Agency executive, is busying himself with writing a book. David Remez, the secretary general of the Histadruth, the Palestine Federation of Labor, is writing articles on archaeological research in Palestine. The first of his articles on this subject appeared today in the Davar, largest daily newspaper in the country.
SEARCH FOR JEWS WHO ESCAPED FROM ATHLIT CAMP YIELDS NO RESULTS
An intensive search conducted by military and police units in an effort to find the twenty-five Jews who escaped Thursday night from the Athlit camp has been unsuccessful so far. Considerable military traffic was observed during the week-end on all roads leading to Tel Aviv. The flight of the Jews from the camp was not discovered by the authorities until Friday.
The escaped Jews are a part of the 3,700 Jewish immigrants held at the Athlit detention camp as “illegal” immigrants. They fled the camp by digging a small tunnel under the barbed wire surrounding the camp premises.
The parents of the eighteen Jewish youths who were recently sentenced to death by a military court in Jerusalem for participating in an attack on the Haifa railway yards today submitted a plea to General Sir Evelyn Barker, British commander in Palestine, asking for commutation of the sentence. The youths are being held in Acre prison.
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.
