BOMB OUTRAGE IN JERUSALEM

Chronicle (Levin), 23 July 1946, Page 5

BOMB OUTRAGE IN JERUSALEM

Press Assn

: O MANY KILLED WHEN TERRORISTS WRECK HOTEL

By Telegraph

-Copyright

• Received Tuesclay, 11.25 a.m. LONDON. Julv 22.

At least fifty persons are-believed to have been killerl when two bombs were exploded by terrorists beneath the King David Hotel in Jerusalem to-day, says a Palestine police communique. The hotel is the site of British military headquarters in Palestine, and of the Palestine Government Secretariat. Five floors were completely wrecked.

The Postmaster-General of Palestije, Mr. G. D. Kennedy, is believed to have been killed. It is also stated, but without confirmation, that a number of senior British military officers were killed. Scores of British military person- j nel and civilians were injured by the blast, and others suffered from shock. Hundreds of troops and workmen are now engaged in clearing the wreckage in a search for bodies believed to be still buried beneath piles of masonry. Fire brigades are fierhting a fire ! which broke out after the explosion, and which is severely hampering ' rescue work. Troops rescuecj many fileis from the burning building, some of i

. which contain evidence linking the Jewish Agency with the underground movement in Palestine. Reuter's Jerusalem correspondent, who arrived on the scene just after , the second explosion, describes see- ! ing a gaping chasm where the fivestorey south-western wing of the hotel had been, of hearing screams of women and of watching the wounded stagger from the wreckage. Other. eve-witnesses said that bodies were hurled from the hotel into the streets. They saw a number of A.T.S. girls being carried away, covered in blood. They state that when the smoke and dust cleared away, one section of the hotel three storeys high and three rooms wide was completely missing.