Bombing of the Palestine Post

The text of this article corresponds with the radio broadcast which can be heard through Front Page Jerusalem. Go to FPJ archives: This week in Israel’s History and then to “Bombing of the Palestine Post”

On the night of February 1st, 1948, an enormous explosion devastated the buildings of The Palestine Post in Jerusalem.
Founded in 1932 by Gershon Agron, an American journalist-turned-newspaper-editor, the Palestine Post supported the struggle for a Jewish homeland in British Mandate Palestine, and openly opposed British policy restricting Jewish immigration. The newspaper’s intended audience was English readers living in Palestine and abroad, tourists and Christian pilgrims. After the initial 1,200 copies, the paper grew, and in 1944 reached a peak circulation of 50,000.

The two buildings of the Palestine Post, located at the top of Jerusalem’s Hassolel Street, also housed other newspaper offices, the British press censor, the Jewish settlement police and a Hagana post with a cache [kash] of weapons. As the British Mandate over Palestine was coming to an end, many British deserters and German POW’s, released from Egyptian camps, volunteered their services in the Arab cause. Their hatred for the Jewish population of Palestine knew no bounds, resulting in many vicious attacks. By attacking the Palestine Post, they tried to silence the voice of truth.

It was in the evening of February 1st, shortly before 10.45, that two British deserters, Eddie Brown and Peter Cameron, drove a stolen British police van up the narrow Hassolel street and left it outside the Palestine Post’s press room. A Nazi trained Arab explosives expert, who had followed the 5-ton lorry, carrying half a ton of TNT, lit the fuse with his cigarette.
The resulting dull-red-flash reached the upper stories of the two buildings. The explosion which rocked a large portion of Jerusalem, spewed glass pieces across the press rooms, shaking and wounding workers and tenants with the blast.
The offices of the newspaper were in shambles and the presses destroyed, as the blast shot pieces of lead all through the air. Precious records were burned and many people were wounded and left homeless.
The wounded were brought to the nearby Hadassah Clearing Clinic. Soon, doctors and nurses streamed to the clinic to help treat the wounded, and two armored buses transported the overflow to Hadassah Hospital on Mount Scopus.

The glaring fires, lighting up the moonlit night, soon spread to the other side of the street, making it impassible for rescue teams. By using a collapsed balcony, hanging by one end, trapped upper-floor tenants climbed to safety. Shocked and confused, they wandered the streets in their night-clothes, until taken in by friends or hotels.

When dawn came, the still burning fires were under control, but created a heavy cloud of smoke over the awakening city. More than 20 people had been wounded in the attack, 9 seriously.

The injured lin-o-typist, who eventually lost an eye, still managed to put together a two-sided, one-page edition of the Palestine Post – by using borrowed equipment.

The next morning, February 2nd,, the provisionally printed paper showed the enemy: The Palestine Post will go on! The editorial in that issue read: “The truth is louder than TNT and burns brighter than the flames of arson. It will win in the end.”

And The Truth did win when terrorist tried to destroy the offices of The Palestine Post!