PALESTINE BRIDGES BLOWN UP

Chronicle (Levin), 18 June 1946, Page 5

PALESTINE BRIDGES BLOWN UP

Press Assn.-Copyright

ALL BfSBStlS OF JEWISH VILLACE ARRESTED

By Telegraph

Received Tuesday, 10.45 a.m. LONDON, June 17. The entire population of the Jewish settlement of Bethhaarava, numbering 300, have be.en arrested by the Palestine police in connection with the blowing up of the Allenby Bridge, says Reuter's Jericho correspondent. Seventy men and women were removed in lorries f or further interrogation. The police and troops were supported by tanks and artillery. .

Reports, on which there is so far no ofQcial comment, say that police dogs led the searchers from the bridge to the small collective settlement on the shores of the Bead Sea. Bcthhaarava is the lowe.st inhabited place on the earth's jl xiface, being 900 feet below sea * wel on the Dead Sea. * -, /The inhabitants resisted the sSarch after the police and motorised infantry had cordoned off the settlement. Jewish workers from a nearby mineral works went to their , aid, and a number of Jewish settiers! were removed for interrogation. The motivcs for last nignt's attacks against road and rail .bridges is believed to be firstly, in j rtply to Mr. Bevin's sLatement ati Bournemouth that the admission of 100,000 Jews would require another; British division in Palestine, and, i secondly, a demonstration connect- | ed with the escape of the Grand j Mufti. While terrorists wearing military j uniforms attacked a police post ati Zib. another party blew up the rail j bridge oi' the Ilaifa-Beirut military j line. Simultmioously other raiders : blew up a road bridge at Metulla, i

;on the frontier between Palestine | and Lebanon. j Thirty armed Jews in Southern { Palestine attacked rail and road ! bridges near Gaza. The rail bridge j was attacked with bombs and is | still standing, but the road bridge, I which was blown up by a land mine J is impassable. | Six Jews held tip a policeman at ' Jisbranat Yacoub Bridge over the ; Jordan. They threw the policemen's ; rifle into the river and then blew jup the bridge. • Other attacks on the southern I shores of the Sea of Galilee resulred in the partial destruction of one j rail and two road bridges. A British Army driver at Gaza [was fatally injured and a companion seriously injured by an Arab mob, which attacked them after their lorry had knocked down a pedestrian in a crowded s'treet during celebrations of the "saf-e return of the Grand Mufti to Palestine." Another British soldier injured in a mob aftack at Gaza died. The total British casualties in the Gaza distxuct are three killed and one injured.