CHALLENGE ISSUED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26626, 24 November 1947, Page 5

CHALLENGE ISSUED

BATTLE IN ORANGE GROVE ARAB OFFER TO STERN GANG Rec. 8 p.m. JERUSALEM, Nov. 22. Hariyeh, a clandestine Arab organisation geheraily believed to be affiliated with the Arab Higher Committee, has issued a challenge to the Stern Gang to fight a pitched battle in the orange groves near the village of Raanana, where Jewish terrorists killed four Arabs two days ago. The police described the Hariyeh challenge to the Stern Gang to fight a pitched battle as “ sabre rattling,” and pointed out that armed Arabs would not be permitted to gather at the Raanana orange groves or anywhere else.

Automatic weapon fire from a passing taxi in Haifa to-day killed an Arab and wounded another. A time bomb which exploded outside a TelAviv house broke some windows, but caused no casualties. A bomb explosion near Bethlehem Police Station injured a seven-year-old Arab girl. Snipers in an orange grove near Tel-Aviv fired on a Jewish boating on the Yarkon River and seriously wounded a 16-year-old Jewish boy. Ten armed members of the Irgun Zvai Leumi held up traffic in Tel-Aviv’s busiest square and broadcast Irgun propaganda against the partitioning of Palestine. A message from London states that tile Dutch Dolice are investigating what is believed to be a widespread plan to aid illegal migration to Palestine, and boarded a confiscated yacht, the Zonnetij IV, off Hansweert and arrested 11 people on board, including a Jewish family of four, says Reuter’s correspondent at The Hague. Later, however, it turned out to be only an adventurous attempt to emigrate from Holland to Curacao and South Africa. The police released seven of the eleven who were arrested, and will shortly release the other four. The Jews had quantities of arms, ammunition and sums of British, South African and Dutch currency, and silver and gold and other valuables.