OFFICIAL STORY OF OUTRAGE

Chronicle (Levin), 24 July 1946, Page 5

OFFICIAL STORY OF OUTRAGE

Eeceivecl Tuesday, 7 p.m. LONLOJS, July 23. An official statement from Britisli" Military Headcjuarters at Jerusalem, describing tlie outrage, says that at 12.10 p.m. a civilian truck drove up to the hotel basement with numbers oi Jews dressed as Arabs, who held up the civilian doorkeeper. The Jews then entered the hotel, and held up the kitchen staff. They unloaded several milk churns which they puslied along the corridor past the Britisli military teiephone exchange. They planted the churns directly below the officcs of the Palestine Government Secretariat. A British officer working at the exchange, who came out to investigate, was severely wounded in the stomach by two revolver shots. Then roinutes later four of five Jews dressed as Arabs were seen escaping from the hotel basement. British troops fired on them 1 and one raider was wounded. A diversionary explosion occured on the road outside the hotel. At 12.37 a tremendous explosion i ripped off the whole corner of the hotelbuilding, destroying 25 rooms occupied by the Palestine Government Secretariat and the Defence Security Office of British Military Headquarters. The Daily Mail's Jerusalem correspondent says the dead include 25 British soldiers. Four high British officials are missing including four senior Pales- j tine officials. King David Hotel is a seven-storey, 500-room building". Only insensate fanaticism can explain yestprday's . Jerusalem outrage, suysf th'e -Thnqs in a ieaJdeii. | The men •. jfiai&ting and executing it are the dupes of an education which taught them to 1 rate nationalist ambitions above justiee and inercy. Now more than ever it is clear the present situation in Palestine cannot be permitted to continue.