REIGN OF TERROR

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19025, 27 May 1936, Page 5

REIGN OF TERROR

MOB LAW IN PALESTINE WIDE AREA AFFECTED RAIDS BY ARMED GANGS BATTLES WITH POLICE (Eloc. Tol. Copyright—United Press Assn.) LONDON, May 26. The Daily Telegraph’s Jerusalem correspondent says that Palestine has now entered the sixth week of lawlessness, almost approaching open rebellion. The whole coastal area from Haifa to Gaza and inland from Nazareth to Jerusalem is affected. Armed terrorists aie roaming the hills uprooting valuable trees, including 1000 at the Jewis i settlement of Emekhefer, destroying communications, bombing official buildings and public vehicles on highways, and stoning and shooting the police and troops. The Arabs, incited by irresponsible propaganda, believe that their salvation depends on resisting the Government. The fiercest fight so far occurred early this morning in the Jewish colony at Mesha, near Mount Tabor. A mixed patrol of eight British and two Palestinian policemen was forced, owing to their ammunition running out, to retreat before 300 armed Arabs, who converged on the colony from several directions.

TROOPS DISPERSE ARABS Word was sent back to Nazareth, from which place a party of North Lancashires advanced to Mesha in extended order. The Arabs, surprised by the sudden appearance of troops, rapidly retreated, carrying their wounded. Ihe police suffered no casualties. A dangerous situation arose at Gaza, where the police repeatedly charged mobs who destroyed insulators and telegraph poles. The Arabs retaliated with stones from roofs, injuring many.

Troops were ordered to assist English families in the neighbourhood, owing to fears of terrorism, and they brought them into the police barracks. A British soldier was wounded during the operation,

Tile police, searching bouses for arms in a village near Nazareth, were stoned by women from roofs. A British police sergeant was injured, after which an officer ordered firing over the women s heads. A richochet killed an Arab girl. The Jerusalem correspondent of The Times says that the village where the Arab giri was killed was Kefr Ivenna, the Biblical Cana of Galilee. Police shots killed an Arab at Gaza. ITALIAN PROPAGANDA

Tlie Daily Telegraph’s Jerusalem correspondent says tiiat Licut.-Ueneral feir Arthur Waucliope, High Commissioner in Palestine, speaking at the Empire Day celebration at the Levant fair at TelAviv, declared that no strike or violence would cause the Government to deflect one jot from its determination to discharge fully its mandatory obligations.

The Cairo correspondent of The Times says that an Italian propagandist was recently active in Palestine, working equally amongi the anti-Zionist- Arabs and the ultra-Zionist Jews. Wellinformed people believe that this was indirectly responsible for much of the rioting and bad blood. The Rome correspondent of The Times says the Corriera Della Sera prints a telegram from Jerusalem alleging that the Arabs at present are especially sympathetic towards the Germans and the Italians. The former are enjoying increased prestige, because they dared to challenge the myth of Jewish world-wide domination, and the latter because Italy is the only nation which dared to oppose the myth of the invincible British Empire.