TROOPS COMB TEL AVIV STREETS

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24907, 21 June 1946, Page 7

TROOPS COMB TEL AVIV STREETS

While British troops carrying Sten guns this morning combed Tel Aviv’s deserted streets, 185,000 Jews watched behind curtained windows. Led by two British officers who were present in the Yarkon Hotel at the time of the kidnapping, search parties moved systematically from house to house. Tanks and armoured cars stood guard at key points round the outskirts of the city. The authorities have announced that all Jewish premises in Palestine are being placed out of bounds until the hostages are returned to British hands. The banned premises include restaurants, bars, and cinemas. The Palestine radio to-day broadcast an appeal in Hebrew, framed by the Tel Aviv town councillors at a gpecicl meeting, asking for the release of the five kidnapped British officers. While military patrols and Criminal Investigation Department officers

swooped on houses in various districts of Tel Aviv, seeking the kidnapped officers, one brigade of the 6th Airborne Division camped in the city streets. Paratroopers bivouacked in the main roads, end dug gun emplacements in the pavements, and shirtsleeved troops with tt«nmy-guns and Sten guns at the ready patrolled in force. Many soldiers who had been standing to all night slept in doorways. Coils of barbed wire and improvised harries des of tables, chairs, wheelbarrows, and tar barrels blocked all side streets leading from Allenby road—Tel Aviv’s main street. The municipality’s appeal for the return of the kidnapped officers is placarded throughout the city. The Government to-night announced that the British Army had advanced the time for lifting the curfew to midnight to-night instead of 4 a.m. to-morrow.