GRAVE CRISIS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23163, 8 October 1938, Page 15

GRAVE CRISIS

PALESTINE REVOLT REIGN OF TERROR ANTI-BEITISI AEABS NATIONALS IN I'EEIIi By Telegraph—Press Association —-Copyright (HeceiTed October 7, 5.6 p.m.) / LONDON, Oct. 7 The seriousness of the situation in Palestine is disclosed by the Cairo correspondent of the Daily Mail, who has, just returned from areas which are under the most rigid press censorship. The writer says the country is in a state of revolt. British prestige is at the lowest ebb. The whole countryside is almost com- * pletely in th,e hands of the rebels, who have their own Courts and give orders which no Arab dare disobeyunder the penalty of death. Scarcely any road is safe. Foreign nationals carry passports, and if-these were British they would be sure to become tickets to Heaven. The air base at Ramleh is a danger spot. Leader of Rebellion a . Fugitive

The correspondent adds that it was actually the rebels who imposed the curfew at Haifa, forbidding Arabs to go out after 7 p m., thereby ensuring that anyone walking in the streets after that time would be British or Jewish, and liable to attack. The Government, therefore, was forced to proclaim the curfew. The situation in North Palestine is particularly bad, says the correspondent. The leader of the rebellion is a fugitive from British authority in Beyrout and Abdel Rahman Haj Mohammed, commander-in-chief of the organised rebels and Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, js more powerful than ever, while the Palestine Government holds a mere shadow of office. Palestine is becoming a land of razed villages and empty houses,' the occupants of which havd joined the rebels because thijj; have nowhere else.to go. . Clashes Between Troops and Arabs Abdel Bahman issues daily communi-, ques which mysteriously appear "on doorsteps in the troubled areas. Arabs to the killed by British troopsTln 24 hours, making an aggregate of 500 deaths in, a fortnight, which is a record casualty list, says a despatch from Jerusalem. The Arabs damaged the railway to the extent of £2OOO, ambushed three road trucks, killed two Jewish drivers and wounded one, and set fire to the trucks. A fourth Jew is missing. The police subsequently killed two of the brigands. Bands in the vicinity of the encounter flared up into a general engagement, in which troops and aircraft participated. Additional terrorism accounts for/the death of two Arab constables and one Jewish. Arabs punctured a pipe-line and ignited the oil and cut telephone wires in the Nazareth district.