Jewish settlers today ambushed an Arab band approaching their colony to launch an attack, killing ten bandsmen and wounding four others, as disorders in other parts of the country took the lives of two british soldiers, two Jews and four Arabs.
The colonists, informed in advance of the raiders’ plans, attacked the band as it approached the Maoz settlement near Beisan, not far from the Transjordan frontier. No Jewish casualties were reported. It was the first time within memory that Jewish colonists took the offensive against a marauding Arab band.
A 20-year-old Jew, Yefet Saadia Achishar, who came here three months ago from Yemen, was killed by three Arabs who entered a grove near Behadraga in the vicinity of Rehoboth. The other Jewish fatality was Issachar Kamel, 26-year-old wireless operator from Czernowitz, Rumania, who was stabbed yesterday and identified today.
The soldiers were killed late last night when a mine exploded under an armored car patrolling the northern frontier. Four other soldiers in the car were wounded.
Two Arabs believed to have been informers were shot dead in the Old City quarter of Jerusalem. Two Arab bandsmen were killed last night during an attack on the Ramallah police station. Terrorists also set fire to a number of pullman cars at the lydda railway station.
The bandit-infested Arab port city of Jaffa was placed under curfew at two o’clock this afternoon until further notice, and heavy reinforcements of British troops and police were sent to the city to enforce the curfew. All banks closed their Jaffa branches and moved their money and documents to the neighboring all-Jewish city of Tel Aviv.
For several hours early today Jaffa was at the mercy of terrorist bands. At two o’clock this morning four Arabs walked into the Central Police Station, tied up two watchmen who were the sole occupants of the building and walked out with 30 police rifles, four revolvers and considerable ammunition. At eight o’clock, a small band entered the Municipal Building and stole $3,500 and a number of typewriters. At ten o’clock an Arab town crier, accompanied by terrorists paraded through the streets proclaiming “curfew” from eight a.m. To six p.m. and warning police to stay off the streets an hour later the first British patrol arrived.
Train service between Jaffa and Jerusalem was halted and service on a number of other lines was partially suspended because of unchecked sabotage resulting in numerous derailing. two hundred new Jewish policemen were sworn in tonight in tel Aviv necessitating the mobilization of all Jewish physicians. Three Arabs setting fire to a Jewish house on the Jaffa Tel Aviv boundary were shot and wounded by police.
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.
