JERUSALEM BOMB OUTRAGE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26703, 24 February 1948, Page 5

JERUSALEM BOMB OUTRAGE

' Jewish Shopping Centre Blasted BRITISH TROOPS ATTACKED New Zealand Press Association—Copyright Rec. 11 p.m. LONDON, Feb. 23, The death roll is mounting as rescuers extricate mutilated and torn bodies from the ruined buildings in Ben Yehuda street —the Jewish shopping centre and site of the worst bomb outrage since the King David Hotel was blown up in July 1946. Reliable Jewish sources say the dead now total 51. After darkness 1000 men and women tunnelled through hills of debris by the light of arc lamps and car headlights to extricate screaming people trapped under the fallen buildings. Many injured crawled from under the masonry leaving trails of bood behind them. First-aid workers picked them up and rushed them to hospital. The scenes resembled those familiar to Londoners during the worst German V-bomb attacks. As the toll of British deaths from reprisal killings mounted, the Jewish Agency and the Jewish National Council warned the Jewish community “ not to complicate matters by taking the law into their own hands.” It was after the first shock had subsided that the rumour ran like wildfire among the Jews that the British were responsible for planting the bombs, says the Jerusalem correspondent of the Daily Telegraph. A Haganah officer warned British officers engaged in rescue work to withdraw. The crowds gave hostile looks to newspaper correspondents* and other non-Jewish elements in the area army. Police authorities, as the crowds’ anger grew, ordered their men to withdraw.

Jewish eye-witnesses declare that immediately before the explosion three army-type trucks preceded by an armoured car entered Ben Yehuda street. These stopped in the middle of the street facing Zion Square where they were then abandoned. Witnesses stated they saw smoke coming from one truck. The police reported that two men dressed as soldiers were in the cab of each truck. The correspondent added that both’ the Jewish and Arab illegal organisations possess large numbers of-British battledresses and pohce uniforms. These are being worn by both sides in the present conflict. The Jerusalem correspondent of the Daily Telegraph says the list of British dead and wounded neared 20 on the night of February 22. A lorry was found in a big crater in the centre of Ben Yehuda street, and a wave of rumours that nr« in uniform were seen running from parked lorries touched off hysterical anti-British demonstrations, with crowds threatening the police and the soldiers, who rushed to help. The demonstrations became so intense that the police and the soldiers were withdrawn. Jews began running through the streets with rifles, pistols, and grenades, shouting that the British were to blame. The British police, in spite of the refusal of the crowds to believe the Arabs responsible, said the Arabs had obviously engineered the explosion. Unofficial Arab sources claimed that a “ special commando ” of Arabs trained abroad had engineered the explosion. They added: ‘'Dynamite commandos ” used a stolen police armoured car and a truck. Menahem Beigin, commander-in-chief of Irgun Zvai Leumi, called on members to “avenge immediately” the. - Jews killed in the explosion. Beigin appealed to World Jewry, especially American Zionists, to declare economic war on Britain. A Jewish source reported that the British police were evacuating the police station in the all-Jewish quarter on the Jaffa road in Jerusalem as a precaution against Irgun’s threat. The authorities have confined to barracks British police in Jerusalem, warned British troops manning road blocks and army posts to be on the alert, and severely tightened security precautions on Government buildings, army and police quarters.

A Jewish Agency spokesman said the agency had received word from Arab sources that the Arabs were not connected with the explosion. He added that it Was unlikely that such a quantity of explosive would be in the hands of private individuals or groups. The agency had formally demanded the immediate withdrawal of British troops and police from the Jewish area of Jerusalem unless accompanied on security duties by Jewish police. The agency added that Jewish civil guards and members of Haganah had been instructed to check the identities of all British forces entering the Jewish zones and to search their vehicles. The agency itself was investigating as “ it no longer has confidence in Government inquiries." Irgun issued a statement saying: “ Henceforth all British military or police entering the Jewish sections will be subject to execution.” Several thousand Haganah men later appeared on the streets and cordoned buildings to prevent looting, and told British troops their help was not wanted.

A Government statement said: “ Regarding the indication that the perpetrators wore police or military uniform, it is unbelievable that members of the security forces could have committed this outrage. The statement added that a police armoured car crew saw a convoy of three trucks and an armoured car, with a man wearing a brown greatcoat and blue police cap in the turret, travelling toward the city centre just before the explosion. The police, suspicious, followed, and saw the trucks parked in Yehuda street unoccupied, with smoke issuing from the rear of the first truck. The police, fearing an explosion, drove on, and a few seconds later the explosion hurled the police car forward." A new explosion in the city to-night blew up an army lorry and killed five British soldiers and wounded six.

Masked Jewish youths broke into a hospital after dusk and shot two British constables wounded earlier to-day. The shots killed one constable and badly wounded the other. Another gang of youths entered Habassah Clinic and killed a British person. Crowds were still yelling in the streets to-night for revenge on the British. Jews fired on an armoured car investigating the earlier killing of two Royal Air Force men shot near the Jewish Agency. Jews also fired on an army truck driving through a road block ou+side the Jewish Agency building, and killed a British soldier and injured a British Army padre riding in a truck. Jews beat up a British policeman when he protested against accusations

British troops, following these incidents, doubled guards on all buildings, took up positions behind the Jewish Agency road-block, and began firing at and over buildings in the Jewish quarter. Other Britisn troops stood by in sand-bagged posts with machine .guns trained in expectation of a possible Jewish attack. There was intermittent firing at a number of places in the city immediately after the explosion. To-night it was reported that street fighting started round Zion Square, near the scene of the morning explosion, after British troops in a lorry had refused to allow the Haganah to search them. The police reported chat Jews fired mortar shells into a troops’ billet in the Street of the Prophets in Jerusalem at dusk, and killed three British servicemen. Jewish sources reported that a road mine blew up three British Armv trucks entering Jerusalem. The casualties are unknown. The Associated Press Tel-Aviv correspondent quotes an official report that the police, after an exchange of fire, drove off a party of Jews in military uniforms who entered Barclay’s Bank.