SECURITY MEASURES TAKEN BY ISRAEL AGAINST IRGUN FORCE

Wanganui Chronicle, 26 June 1948, Page 5

SECURITY MEASURES TAKEN BY ISRAEL AGAINST IRGUN FORCE

(N.Z.P.A.—Copyright.) Recd. 5.30 p.m. London, June 25 Reuter’s Tel Aviv correspondent says that Israeli regular troops clamped an internal security guard over all the Jewish-controlled areas of Palestine to prevent further breaches of the United: Nations truce by dissident Irgun Zvai Leumi forces, more than 60 of whom were arrested in their Tel Aviv strongholds on Thursday night. Arrests of the Irgun men followed a statement by Menahem Beigin, the Irgun Commander-in-Chief, that his forces, once nominally incorporated into the regular Israeli Army, no longer recognised the Jewish Provisional Government, and would no longer co-operate with the Haganah. It was recalled, here that Irgun irregulars—linked with the Stern Gang as terrorist forces among the Jews —announced when the United Nations truce became effective, that they would not recognise it. They had earlier declared that they would carry on the war against the remaining British in Palestine. Irgun cooperated with Britain in wartime until 1943 and was then reformed and. led by Beigin, who is a former Polish Army corporal.