Reliable sources today reported that a military plan has been prepared by the authorities here for combatting terrorism if it is renewed on a scale as large as last week when twenty simultaneous attacks were made on British military installations. The scheme provides:
1. Palestine will be cut off from the rest of the world by the closing of all frontiers on land, sea and air, including the closing of ports to all commercial shipping.
2. Traffic on roads within the country will be allowed only under special permits issued by the authorities.
3. All means of transportation, including buses maintained by Jewish cooperatives, are to be requisitioned or put under military control.
4. A collective punishment system is to be introduced in places where terrorist acts occur, and a nightly curfew is to be imposed throughout the country.
5. Martial law may be imposed and certain Jewish leaders may be detained.
The Jewish Telegraphic Agency learns that during the talks between the leaders of the Jewish National Council and of the world Zionist executive and Acting High Commissioner Henry L. Gurney, the latter expressed the view that the military authorities may not be able to restrain the troops in the event of renewed Jewish attacks "exactly as you are not able to restrain the terrorists." To this the Jewish leaders replied that the only remedy for terrorism would be free Jewish immigration and, as a first step, the repatriation to Palestine of the refugees interned in Cyprus.
JEWISH NATIONAL COUNCIL STRESSES NECESSITY FOR HALTING TERRORISM
The urgent necessity of halting terrorism in Palestine was emphasized at a meeting of the executive of the Jewish National Council here at which Isaac Ben Zvi, president, gave a report of the talks held by him and other Jewish leaders with Acting Chief Secretary Gurney.
The executive also heard a report on the rioting of British troops in Jewish cities and settlements and misbehavior of British troops during the house-to-house searches last week. Similar reports were made today at a session of the municipal council in Tel Aviv, scene of the major attacks.
A resolution sharply condemning the attacks on British military installations was adopted by the Tel Aviv municipality. At the same time, the council decided to submit to government authorities a protest charging the troops with firing indiscriminately into dwellings of innocent citizens and wounding a number of them. It also emphasized that looting of Jewish homes has become a frequent occurence during searches.
The Haganah radio, "Voice of Israel," today repeated its warning to the extremists that the "Yishuv’s patience is already exhausted" by the continued terror which may bring disaster to the Jewish community. It warned the Jewish population that the British military forces are preparing actions which will lend aid to the ex- tremists propaganda. The announcer appealed to the authorities to realize that it was "impossible to solve the Palestine problem against the will of the Jewish people and in opposition to the spirit of Zionism."
IRGUN CHARGES MILITARY AUTHORITIES WITH TORTURING CAPTURED MEMBERS
The Irgun Zvai Leumi, broadcasting on its underground transmitter, "Voice of Fighting Zion," today admitted that it had carried out last week’s country-wide attacks and charged that one of its members who was captured in a taxi was "cold bloodedly killed" by the British. The announcer said that three other men apprehended at the same time were taken to a military camp where they were beaten and tortured "by Nazi methods," resulting in face and head injuries and broken limbs for all of them.
Members of the British Women’s Auxiliary Air Force yesterday appeared on the streets armed and walking in pairs. This is the first time precautionary measures were decreed by military headquarters for women soldiers.
A landmine blew up the front of a military truck today near Petach Tikvah. The explosion occurred near the spot where a jeep was blasted last Friday. Another mine went off under an army truck near Mikveh Israel. No damage resulted from either blast. A landmine was discovered and dismantled this morning on the road between Safad and Rosh Pinna, in northern Palestine.
A Palestine-wide conference of Jewish lawyers, meeting today in Tel Aviv, adopted a resolution condemning the Emergency Defense Regulations as "contradicting" the principle that individual rights and freedoms are the "very foundations of justice." Other resolutions protested the detention of Jews without trial and their exile to concentration camps outside the country, scored terrorism and pledged full support to the Jewish community’s campaign of combatting it, and demanded the opening of Palestine’s gates to unrestricted Jewish immigration.
It was revealed today that in an arms cachs found in an Arab cemetery near Hadera yesterday there were a number of pistols, one submachine gun, a quantity of small arms ammunition and some explosives.
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.
