PALESTINE OUTRAGES

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 246, 16 October 1937, Page 9

PALESTINE OUTRAGES

TRAIN BLOWN UP MOTOR-BUS AMBUSHED ARAB AND JEWISH C ASUALTIES (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) Received Oct. 15, 9.5 p.m. JERUSALEM, Oct. 14. A train en route to Lydda from Haifa was blown up by a land mine twenty miles from Jaffa. Three passengers were killed. A number of the coaches was overturned by the explosion, which destroyed a small bridge. A policeman accompaning the train reported that he saw a number of Arabs fleeing. They failed to obey an order to halt and he shot dead two. A report from the Jewish settlement in the Beisan Valley states that, the Irak pipeline was pierced in two and the oil gushing from the pipe was ignited. A party of Bedouins tried to prevent colonists from ploughing the land in the new colony of Tiratzui in the Beisan area, claiming that the ground belonged to them. Four Jews were slightly wounded.

For the first time since the rioting an armoured trolley car, containing troops and machine-guns and searchlights, was used to pilot two trains carrying the First Battalion of the Royal Sussex to Egypt. The precaution was due to uneasiness for the safety of the troops, who were due to travel at night lime through the narrow Judean mountain defiles before joining the main line. The battalion is being replaced by the Black Watch.

British police dining in a Greek cafe showed coolness when a bomb was thrown amongst them. They picked it up and prevented it exploding. The police have ordered all cinemas in Jerusalem to close. A crowded Jewish motor-bus bound for Tel Aviv was ambushed in rounding a dark corner at the bottom of a defile of the Jaffa Road, five miles from Jerusalem. Thirty shots were fired and bombs were thrown, two Arabs being killed and nine Jews wounded, including a Jewish supernumerary of police and two women. Those who were not injured jumped from the bus and rushed to cover. The bus ran backwards and crashed in an olive grove.

The Jewish driver of the bus was arrested later for allegedly shooting an Arab passenger when the bus was fired on.

An Arab was killed when a bomb which he was about to throw at another Jewish motor-bus exploded in his hands. Five more leaders of the Arab Higher Committee have been banished from Palestine. All the leaders are now abroad. TRAIN FIRED ON. Received Oct. 16, 1 a.m. LONDON, Oct. 15. The train carrying the troops of the Royal Sussex regiment was fired on from the hills but there were no casualties. CURFEW IN JERUSALEM SYRIAN FRONTIER CLOSED Received Oct. 15, 5.32 p.m. LONDON, Oct. 15. The Daily Telegraph’s Jerusalem correspondent says that the curfew has been imposed and troops are patrolling the streets. An early declaration of martial law is expected. The Palestine-Syrian frontier was closed at midnight.