654 JEWS DETAINED

Greymouth Evening Star, 2 August 1946, Page 7

654 JEWS DETAINED

ARMY COMB-OUT IN TEL AVIV CONTINUES GREAT ARMS DUMP FOUND (Rec. 11.20 a.m.) LONDON, August 1. The suspects detained in the present comb-out for terrorists in Tel Aviv now total 654, states Reuter s Jerusalem correspondent, quoting an official announcement. They include a number believed to be identical with men wanted for complicity in offences, ranging from murder to sabotage, besides a number wanted for less important offences. Major General A. J. Cassels stated that 34 men and one woman, all “extremely important persons” in the Jewish terrorist organisations, Irgun Zvai Leumi and the Stern gang, were captured during the comb-out. He added that the British Army’s drive against terrorists in Tel Aviv would probably end to-morrow, but the “shoot at sight” curfew would not be lifted until the interrogations were completed. The police found a quantity ol loaded arms, including a sub-ma-chinegun and ammunition, in Giveh Shaul, a Jewish residential suburb west of Jerusalem. Twenty-three rifles and a number of rifle grenades were found in a manhole alongside the Kalandia airstrip, north of Jerusalem, near the Jewish settlement of Etarot. . Troops of the sixth Airborne Division fired one round last night when Jewish demonstrators tried to rush a barrier during the lifting of the Tel Aviv Curfew order to allow the inhabitants to buy provisions? The demonstrators withdrew. One was wounded in the leg. The Associated Press Tel Aviv correspondent reports that a British battalion, after establish-

ing temporary headquarters in a boys' school in Tel Aviv, found that they were in the midst of a vast dump of arms, believed to belong to the Haganah. Thousands of rounds of ammunition, motor bombs, grenades and hundreds of rifles and pistols were found in sealed rooms under the main floors.

Airborne Division sappers are still hacking down the walls expecting to find new caches. An officer stated that the 40-room two-storey building seemed designed with hiding places built in. Pneumatic drills a few minutes after starting work opened up three large secret rooms and were on the track of a fourth. Among the interesting finds were a number of two and three-inch mortars and a dummy for a fieldgun, which was probably used for training. „ The strike at Haifa was called off this afternoon pending negotiations for early disembarkation of the immigrants. Two of the five British officers captured on June 18 by the Irgun . Zvai Leumi organisation identified at a parade of suspects, one of their captors an Oriental Jew, Hoshe Mizrachi. Donald Thompson, assistant Chief Secretary, who was rescued after he was buried for 31 hours under the wrecked King David Hotel died today. __________________