RELEASED BY JEWS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26197, 6 July 1946, Page 7

RELEASED BY JEWS

KIDNAPPED OFFICERS CRATE DUMPED IN STREET JERUSALEM, July 4. The three British officers kidnapped from the officers’ club in Tel-Aviv were released to-day. They were brought in a crate on a lorry to the British Officers’ Institute in Tel-Aviv shortly after 6 p.m. The crate was dumped in the street and the officers stepped out, blindfolded and gagged, before the astonished gaze of passers-by. They slipped'off the gags and masks and chased the lorry without avail. The lorry was reported to contain 10 armed men. British troops are preparing to evacuate the bunkered . positions around the Jewish Agency’s fort-like building in Jerusalem. The barbedwire entanglements in parks and gardens in the vicinity are being removed. Police officials state that the search of buildings has finished. It was carried out in every room and drawer Many documents were returned after examination. The Jewish Agency has been invited to send representatives to join representatives of the army and police on a survey board to assess the damage. It is expected that the building will be handed over to the agency within a week. The search for arms at Meshek Yagur, where weapons and ammunition were found, has now ceased. Hundreds of women demonstrated near the Government offices in TelAviv to-day, demanding the release of their husbands.

The Irgun Zvi Leumi has sent newspaper correspondents in Palestine a nine-point Jewish charter for freedom. It calls for general mobilisation and for the establishment of a Jewish provisional Government to “ fight for the downfall of British occupation.” The points include boycott of British courts of justice, the establishment of Jewish courts, and the establishment of a Jewish national Treasury, to which taxes will be paid, instead of going to the British Government.