50 ARRESTS MADE

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 25021, 1 November 1946, Page 7

50 ARRESTS MADE

Bomb Explosions In Jerusalem MAIN STATION DAMAGED (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 11 p.m.) LONDON. Oct 31. Fifty arrests have been made so far in a search which followed the explosion of two bombs in the strongly fortified main station in Jerusalem yesterday. Three policemen were killed in the explosions and searchers are still looking for 12 persons reported missing. The explosions wrecked part of the station and the whole of it was so damaged as to make it unusable by trains for a week. The Irgun Zvai Leumi, broadcasting over the secret radio “Voice of Fighting Zion,” after the bombs had exploded, said: “The Jews are at war. Only arms will decide Palestine's future, not an election." Reuter’s correspondent, giving the official version of the attack on the station, says that a young Jewess, described as “the girl in red,” was the main instigator of the outrage. The girl slipped past the Arab police, held up a railway clerk at pistol point, and planted three suitcases containing bombs in a waiting room. Two of the bombs later exploded, wrecking part of the station and killing a British constable. The constable had carried one of the suitcases out of the waiting room and was re-entering to remove the other two when the bombs exploded, killing him instantly. The girl in the meantime had leapt into a taxi which tore off through a hail of fire from police automatic weapons. Police cars and armoured cars summoned by radio had formed a net through the city, and the taxi roared through twisting lanes in the Jewish slum quarters in an effort to break through it A police patrol later cornered the taxi, which surrendered near thewalW of the Old City. Inside were three Jews, two of whom were wounded. A quantity of explosives and hand grenades was found beneath the flooring of the taxi. The correspondent of “The Times” says “the girl in red” was not found in the taxi when it stopped. She had got out, he says, and had led one of her wounded companions into a Jewish woman’s house and left him there. The correspondent of the Associated Press says a wounded Jew was arrested in a nearby house, and that 10 other suspects, including a girl in red, were held. The girl was questioned in an attempt to establish the identity of the girl who planted the bombs. A motor-cyclist, who was carrying explosives, was arrested near the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders’ When darkness fell, the police were still combing the Montefiore quarter,, while all Jerusalem was gripped by a tension which had not been felt since the King David Hotel outrage. The correspondent of ‘the Associated Press, giving his version of the attack on the station, says that two taxi loads of Jewish youths armed with Tommyguns succeeded' in entering the station and planting the bombs. The three bombs exploded about an hour after the terrorists forced an entry. The bombs shoc k the station at about 15 second intervals. The police said that one of the casualties wits believed to be an Arab civilian who grabbed the terrorists when they alighted from the taxis. Police and troops were rushed to the station following the warning, and sappers were trying to locate the bombs when the explosions occurred. They succeeded in getting the first bomb out of the building, where it exploded harmlessly, but the second exploded in the hands of a British police sergeant who was removing it. The third exploded inside the building and wrecked the waiting-room and loading platform.' It is believed, the correspondent says, that British troops later captured three men and a girl, all wounded, half a mile from the station. The explosions occurred 40 minutes after a telephoned warning.