HUNT IS UP

Evening Star, Issue 26041, 4 March 1947, Page 7

HUNT IS UP

GOMD-OUT OF MEA SHERIM AREA

JEWISH COMMUNITY FACES ECONOMIC DISASTER

(JJec. 1 p.m.) LONDON, March 3. . The Lincolnshire regiment, after firing warning shots throughout the night to keep residents off balconies, made a house-to-house search this morning in one small part of Mea Sherim, the working-class area of Jerusalem. Milling throngs filled the street at 10 a.m. local time when Brigadier E. E. Davies, commander of the martial law area, lifted the curfew for three hours. Brigadier Davies, /while touring th’e district, was bombarded with questions and complaints. Residents in one area complained of a lack of water since March 1. (Brigadier Davies gave one man a special • escort to remove a housekeeper’s two-day-old corpse to a cemetery. Shrieking housewives battled at shops to buy. food before ,tho curfew was reimposed. Rabbi Moshe Goldman, at the invitation of the authorities, is accompanying the troops during the searches of Mea Sherim’s religious institutions. It is officially stated that a terror-, juts’ workshop found in a house cellar in Tet-Aviv contained many types of explosives, including electric detona-

tors and hand grenades, besides arms, ammunition, and uniforms. It was tho* first haul since the curfew was imposed. The Exchange Telegraph’s. Jerusalem correspondent quotes Jewish Agency sources as saying that the agency had cabled Moshe Shertok, the agency’s executive member in Washington, ordering him to ask President Truman to urge the British Government to end martial law. The cable said “ economic disaster ’’ threatened the Tel-Aviv area. The Governor of the Tel-Aviv area. Major-general R. N. Gale, warned Jews that continued martial law over the Tel-Avfv 'area, which is the hub of Jewish indus- ; trial life, would “ inevitably spell economic disaster for the whole Jewish community. Business is go-, ing to be hamstrung.” He added ‘ that the sooner the loss of life through terforist activity could be eliminated, the sooner industrial life would get back to normal. General Gale said he had instructed his commanders, wherever the population co-operated, that there should be every indulgence in the application of military restrictions, but where resistance and obstruction were encountered there would be “no nonsense.” In his first proclamation as- military Governor of the Tel-Aviv area. General Gale transferred all powers from the civil to the military authorities and ordered the closing by 10 p.m. of all cafes, hotels, restaurants, and cinemas.