Fighting in Old CityClick here to view the original article.

JERUSALEM, Dec. 30-Fifty-one Jews, Arabs and Britons died today by bombing, beating, stabbing or shooting in a wild orgy of hatred over the United Nations’ decision to partition Palestine.

Forty-seven of the victims-41 Jews and six Arabs-were killed in the great oil port of Haifa. Jews rolled a barrel bomb from a racing limousine into a queue of Arabs lined up in front of the Consolidated Oil Refinery, in which both Arabs and Jews are employed.

Arab workers in the plant, who outnumbered the Jews, went berserk. As the bomb-throwers fled to safety the Arabs attacked every Jew they could find in the plant. They dragged from offices and workshops fellow workers beside whom they had labored in peace for years and stabbed, beat and kicked them to death.

REPORTED INJURED

The death toll was 41 Jews and six Arabs killed and 42 Arabs and seven Jews wounded. Early reports put the number of wounded at 61.

Two British members of the Palestine criminal investigation department were assassinated by gunmen here. A terrified Jew was grabbed by an Arab mob in Jerusalem also and shot through the ears after he had been dragged through the streets. A third British policeman was shot and killed while on guard in an armored car at the funeral of a Jewish physician whom Arabs murdered Sunday in the olive groves of Holy Gethsemane.

POST OFFICE STRIKE

Jerusalem was cut off from normal communications by telephone, telegraph and mail with foreign countries at dusk as the result of a strike at the general post-office. Jewish officials walked out this morning after demanding that a post-office be set up in a Jewish quarter where they would be safe.

Government and press messages are being sent abroad by the army radio and cable system from the Allenby barracks in the security zone.

(The New York Times, in a copyrighted dispatch, reported public services in Palestine were seriously crippled. In addition to the post-office walkout, telephone workers refused to continue on duty because protection was insufficient, they said. Authorities were unable to promise a restoration of long-distance service by tomorrow.)