Jewish Terrorists Release 60 Prisoners After Storming Gaol

Evening Star, Issue 26092, 5 May 1947, Page 5

Jewish Terrorists Release 60 Prisoners After Storming Gaol

'(Rec. noon.) JERUSALEM, May 4. Sixty prisoners escaped from Acre Prison this afternoon after the prison had been attacked with bombs and gqnfire by Jewish terrorists. The attack occurred after die terrorists had strewn adjacent roads and bridges will* mines. Later, the police arrested nine wounded Jews. It is thought that other escapees are hiding in the Arab city of Acre, which troops cordoned off. An official statement on the affair says that two jeep loads of armed Jews, dressed in military uniforms, drove into Acre as small-arms fire broke out in several parts of the town. An explosion simultaneously occurred in the prison. Three, bombs were found outside the prison, .which is capable of holding 3,000 prisoners. The terrorists engineered the prison break by occupying a house backing on to the outside wall of the prison. They then exploded a charge, which breached the wall, through which the 60 prisoners scrambled to escape. Sixteen have so far been recaptured. Three Jews were found dead in the vicinity of the prison. It is not known whether they were attackers or prisoners. Dov Gruner and three other terrorists were executed in Acre Prison on April j 6. Five British soldiers were slightly injured when a military truck in which they were travelling ran over a land mine north of Haifa.

Jews Fight Jews in Haifa

Jews are fighting Jews in Haifa, reports the Haifa correspondent of ‘ The Times,’ Masked members of Haganah visited the homes of the parents of youthful terrorists, when they tried to interfere. Haganah members also removed a mine which Irgun Zvai Leuini men had placed on the Acre-Haifa railway. Irgun men then put the mine into the settlement well, whereupon Haganah members dragged all the members of the Irgun Zyai Leumi in the neighbourhood' into a wood and heat them so severely that three were taken to hospital. The correspondent adds that these admonitory attacks by moderate Haganah should not be taken as an indication of growing Jewish support for the Government. AntiBritish feeling among Jews is stronger than ever.

An official announcement on deaths says that the 11 Jewish casualties included five Jews killed when British troops returned the fire of the terrorists, who ambushed paratroopers after a bathing parade near Haifa. Six Jews were also killed in the prison break, comprising four escaping prisoners and two terrorist attackers. The terrorists hurled a diversionary grenade into the prison, slightly wounding one British prison official and a number of criminal mental patients. There were 550 prisoners in the gaol before the terrorists liberated 251, who comprised 120 Jews. (80 of them , terrorists) and 131 Arabs. Irgun Zvdi Leumi, in a statement to the Jewish Press, announced: “We liberated our prisoners of war.” The strictest security precautions were operating throughout Palestine as police troops hunted the escaped convicts. ,