British Mandate: A Survey of Palestine: Volume I - Page 76

CHAPTER II.

quarries and on 13th July a lorry load of explosives was ambushed and the British constable escort killed; on the same day a bridge on the Haifa-Kantara railway line was blown up. On 7th August £P.3,5-00 were stolen from a Tel Aviv bank in an armed bold-up. On 13th August a large body of armed Jews stole 450 lbs. of gelignite and other explosives from the store at Petah Tiqva of Sole! Boneh Ltd., a Jewish co-operative. On 16th August the personnel of a training unit of the Irgun Zvai Leumi were arrested near Benyamina : they were subsequently tried by a military court for the possession of arms and explosives and twenty of them sentenced to imprisonment on 16th October. On 20th August a Jewish settler who had been of assistance to the police was murdered. On 2nd September armed Jews dressed as British police attempted to rob the safe of a Tel Aviv bank and, shortly afterwards, £P.5,000 worth of textiles were stolen in Tel Aviv by the Irgun Zvai Leumi. On 28th September a British constable was fatally wounded in Tel Aviv while escorting money for the payment of Government officials' salaries. On 9th October the illegal radio transmitter of the Hagana began to broadcast in English, Arabic and Hebrew and continued daily thereafter. On 11th October 218 rifles, 15 machine guns and ammunition were stolen from the training depot for Palestinian soldiers at Rehovotb. On 16th October a military truck containing £P.14,000 was ambushed by armed men, who were beaten off by the Jewish military escort. On 31st October a concerted series of attacks was made by armed Jews on the Palestine railway system culminating in a full-scale attack on Lydda railway station and goods depot. The permanent way was blown up and cut in 242 places; seven locomotives, a signal box and a locomotive shed were seriously damaged. Casualties included one British soldier, one Palestinian policeman and one Palestinian railway man killed. On the same night police launches at Haifa and Jaffa were blown up by limpet bombs and an unsuccessful attempt was made on the Consolidated Refineries installation at Haifa. These operations were probably the combined work of the Hagana, Irgun and Stern Group. On 27th December police headquarters in Jerusalem , police stations in Jaffa and Tel Aviv and a military depot in Tel Aviv were attacked by large ga,ngs of armed men of the Irgun Zvai Leumi; severe damage was caused to the police buildings by explosives and two British police officers, two British constables, one Arab telephone operator, one British soldier and four Basuto soldiers were killed and others wounded by fire from automatic weapons or explosives. On 12th January, l946, a train was derailed near Hadera and attacked by some seventy armed Jews; £P.35,000

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