Twelve Arabs and one Jew died today in the aftermath of nearly a week’s communal clashes between Jews and Arabs in Tel Aviv and Jaf##fa. Several other persons were wounded, although the number of incidents appeared to be fewer today than yesterday.
The Haganah today executed a number of Arabs and blew up an Arab house six miles from Tel Aviv in retaliation for the attack last Sunday night on a Tel Aviv cafe. The Jewish defense organization announced that it had shot four Arab "gangsters" who, it was established, took part in the attack on the cafe. The Haganah also blasted the house in which they lived. A police communique declared that besides the four Arabs who had been shot in an orange grove near the house, the bodies of an Arab man, his wife and four children were found in the debris. A sign nearby warned passersby: "Danger – Mines."
Two Arabs died and two Jews were wounded this morning in a battle at Shechunat Ezra, on the outskirts of Tel Aviv. The fight started when a crowd of Yemenite Jews set fire to a bus in which a number of Arabs were travelling.
At Kfar Saba the body of Itzhak Ben Tikva, a resident of the settlement, was found by a watchman shortly after he heard two shots. In the early morning hours a pitched battle with stones and clubs took place at Salameh Road on the edge of Jaffa. Prompt action by the police halted the engagement before any one was seriously injured.
Among the other incidents which occurred was the firing of the pump house at the Arab village of Abu Kebir, where Arabs yesterday threw up road blocks and killed two Jews whom they dragged out of a car. An official release said that an Arab bus was fired on by Jews. Although the driver escaped with his life, his bus was set afire and destroyed. Another Arab was wounded in the Harakevet quarter of Tel Aviv when he was attacked by a group of Jews.
JEWISH AGENCY ASKS GOVERNMENT ACTION TO PREVENT A "BLOOD BATH"
The Jewish Agency today issued a statement to the press pointing out that the government is faced with a "suprems test" to maintain law and order in Palestine. It declared that statements by leading Jewish and Arab organizations prove conclusively that neither peoples want war, and that the government must act quickly and decisively to prevent "irresponsible elements from plunging the country into a blood bath." At about the same time, a government communique doclared that the clashes were unrelated incidents confined to limited areas.
A statement by the Chief Rabbinate was tonight read on the Palestine radio. It appealed to the population to maintain discipline and not to shod "innocent blood." The Jaffa municipality last night issued a manifesto calling on all Arabs to avoid slashes with the Jews.
MORE REVISIONISTS ARRESTED; LABOR HOUSE RAIDED
Complicating the situation today were several attacks by the extremists. A nine exploded under a freight train between Hadera and Benyamina, causing minor injury to the track and injuring several trainmen. At Naharya a bomb was thrown from a speeding car into a British camp, but it did not explode. In Jerusalem the dusk-to-dawn curfew was lifted after being in effect for 25 days.
Meanwhile, British troops rounded up another 18 Revisionist leaders in Nathanya, scene of the abduction and subsequent hanging of two British sergeants by the Haganah. In Tel Aviv, it was officially announced, one other Jew was arrested in the hunt for "suspected terrorists." The police also searched Labor House, headquarters of labor organizations in Tel Aviv, and detained an undisclosed number of persens.
High Commissioner Sir Alan G. Cunningham and Vice Admiral Sir Cecil Harcourt, of the British Mediterranean fleet, conferred today. It is reported they discussed further measures to head off Jewish visaless immigration and the problem of transporting internees from Cyprus to Palestine.
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.
