Britain’s Palestine Partition Commission, seeking a final settlement of disorders which have held sway in the Holy Land intermittently for two years, held its first session today in a land seething with unrest which overflowed into Syria and Egypt.
The four-man commission held an informal meeting this morning with its chairman, Sir John Woodhead, presiding, and then announced formal hearings would start at the end of a fortnight, during which time the commission will tour the country to obtain firsthand information on the various aspects of its general problem. The commission invited organizations and individuals to submit memoranda and to testify orally, with the choice of public or private hearings or both.
A 22-hour curfew was imposed on the Arab town of Jenin after shopkeepers refused to call off a strike launched in protest against the Partition Commission. Thirty-one Arabs, many of them wanted by the police, were seized by troops of the Ulster Regiment last night in a surprise raid on the village of Silat-el-Dahr, a communique announced today. Rifles, revolvers, hand grenades, land mines, ammunition and a quantity of khaki uniforms was found.
The Military Court at Haifa sentenced to death an Arab, Mustafa al-Hindawy, for the murder of Abraham Goldschlager, Jewish guide of the American settlement of Juarrah in the Jezreel Valley, on Feb. 28.
Six of ten Jews arrested in Haifa last week in connection with the bombing of an Arab cafe were released. Three Jewish youths are scheduled to face trial before the Nazareth Military Court for possession of bombs and revolvers. They were arrested April 21 for an attack on an Arab bus.
An estimated damage of $15,000 was caused by an incendiary fire that razed the Rehoboth Citrus Packing House last night. A ten-hour curfew was imposed on the section surrounding the Iraq Petroleum Co. pipeline terminus in Haifa after sabotage of the pipeline. Arabs occupied Jewish-owned land in Neve Ganim, east of Haifa, and commenced plowing. Police, notified by Jewish settlers, did not interfere.
The administration was reported to have refused permission to Ragheb Bey Nashashibi, ex-mayor of Jerusalem, to call a Palestine Arab conference to discuss the general situation.
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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.
