POLICE STATION AT HAIFA DEMOLISHED BY EXPLOSION WITH MANY CASUALTIES

Wanganui Chronicle, 30 September 1947, Page 5

POLICE STATION AT HAIFA DEMOLISHED BY EXPLOSION WITH MANY CASUALTIES

RESCUE WORKERS DIG IN RUINS FOR BODIES OF DEAD AND INJURED (N.Z.P.A.—Rtuter—Copyrights Received 10.45 p.m. JERUSALEM, Sept. 29 Perhaps six British and Arab policemen were killed and fifty people injured this morning when an explosion virtually demolished the police station at Haifa, states an .official report. A lorry drove to the edge of the barbedwire barricade, where the occupants lowered a barrel of explosives and rolled it into the perimeter. The Associated Press correspondent says the explosion shattered the windows of five blocks of Kingsway, in which the police station is situated. An eye-witness reports that a bus carrying 40 or 50 passengers was passing the station as the blast occurred. Many passengers were injured. The explosion killed the Arab guard who gave the alarm. Falling debris 50 yards away killed an Arab coffee vendor. Power and telephones were eut off and a water-main broken. Rescue workers are digging in the ruins for dead and injured.

It was later officially announced hat the explosion killed three Jritish policemen, four Arab jolicemen and one Arab coffee vendor. It seriously injured three British policemen and slightly inured 27 other police and 17 Arab civilians. The ppliee said the Stern Gang *p?obably planted the bomb which they brought to the police station in a trailer attached to a truck. Four Jews have been detained by I the police. The Irgim Zvai Leumi announced that it was responsible for the explosion, which was in retaliation for the transferring of Jewish refugee ships to Hamburg on September- 7 and to- Famagusta on September 28. British troops in Bren-gun carriers. tanks and armoured cars strung barbed-wire barricades across the streets to isolate the lower part of Haifa from the predominantly Jewish section.