Holy Land Death Toll Mounts, Associated Press, San Francisco Chronicle, Nov. 15, 1947.

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Jew, Four Britons Killed in Palestine

JERUSALEM, Nov. 14 (AP)—Police sources said a 20-year-old Jew was killed tonight when a bus was shot up in Haifa, raising to five the day’s toll of violent deaths in the tense Holy Land.

Another Jew was reported wounded on the bus. He was identified as Emanuel Ben-Gurion, teacher and nephew of David Ben-Gurion, head of the Jewish Agency Executive.

The other four fatalities were Britons on the Palestine Security Forces. Since Wednesday, 10 British have been killed and 33 wounded and six Jews killed and three wounded.

Police informants said the shots fired at the bus came from a taxicab or private car.

TEL AVIV DEATHS

Earlier, small gangs operating in crowded streets shot and killed two British soldiers in Tel Aviv and two British policemen in Jerusalem. Police informants said the gunmen belonged to the Stern Gang, extremist Jewish underground group.

Two grenades were tossed against a police billet tonight near where the two British policemen were shot in Jerusalem, and automatic weapon bullets beat against the building. One police sergeant was shot in the leg.

Police sources attributed the sudden outbreak of violence to Stern gang reprisals for the military and police raid on what they described as a Stern arsenal and training center north of Tel Aviv on November 12. Three teen-age Jewish girls and two Jewish youths were killed in that raid and four young Jews captured.

QUIET ENDS

The violence ended about a month and a half of comparative quiet throughout Palestine—a period during which Jews and Arabs concentrated attention on the partition plan now before the United Nations.

Officials said two British policemen in civilian clothes were shot from behind with automatic weapons as they walked up Jaffa Road in Jerusalem toward Mustapha Police Station to report for duty.

One died instantly, but the other, Jewish witnesses said, got to his feet and returned the fire before collapsing. He died a short time later. A 4-year-old Jewish girl and 13-year-old boy in an orphanage were injured in the exchange of fire.

ATTACK DESCRIBED

In Tel Aviv officials said four young Jews walked up behind two British soldiers and shot them in the back. The soldiers were dead when they reached a hospital.

The Tel Aviv shooting came shortly after groups of pistol-firing youths had roamed the streets demanding that shops and cafes close for the funeral of the five Jews killed in the raid on the Stern arsenal.

In Haifa, government and city officials were joined by Jewish labor and other organization leaders as well as oil company employees at the funeral of four Shell oil men killed in a shooting attack last night. All filling stations in Palestine closed at noon until tomorrow. Police sources said they believed the four “probably were mistaken for policemen.”