Jews Blow Up Arab Chiefs’ Hotel

United Press, Jerusalem

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Jews Blow Up Arab Chiefs’ Hotel New Blast Today Follows Headquarters Bombing Heavy Explosion Wrecks Building; 34 Persons Killed, 100 Or More Hurt Jerusalem, Monday, Jan. 5.

(AP)—The Semiramis Hotel in Jerusalem, believed to be a transit headquarters for Arab leaders, was wrecked early today by a heavy explosion which police said had killed at least 20 Arabs and wounded 12 others. Six more persons were believed buried alive in the debris.

Police said the blast was touched off by members of the Jewish underground, who Sunday were blamed for two explosions which shook a crowded public square in the Arab port of Jaffa, demolishing another Arab headquarters and killing at least 14 persons. Ninety-eight were wounded, 20 of them seriously.

The Semiramis Hotel is a three-story stone structure where the Jews have claimed Arab leaders stayed on visits to Palestine. Heavy gunfire was heard in the vicinity of the hotel after the double explosion, indicating that Arab guards had engaged the attackers.

The scene after the explosion was reminiscent of the bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem on the night of July 22, 1946, when nearly 100 persons—including many Britons—were killed by a bomb planted by Irgun Zvai Leumi, Jewish underground group. Today’s bombing was the worst since the King David incident.

Arab sources differed with police in their estimate of the casualties in the Jaffa bombings, placing the number of dead at 30. Many persons were believed to have been buried under falling masonry, and wind and rain, sweeping in from the Mediterranean, hampered rescue work. Jerusalem, Palestine, Jan. 4.

(UP)—Dark-skinned Jews, dressed as Arabs, slipped into all-Arab Jaffa today and blew up the crowded headquarters of the Arab Higher Committee and Arab underground army Najada with a truckload of dynamite hidden in orange crates. An official British report said 14 Arabs were killed and about 90 wounded, 20 seriously. The Continued on Page 11; 1st Col.

… “British said many of the victims were Arab refugees, including a heavy proportion of children, who had been sheltered temporarily in the building for lack of safe homes elsewhere… In the midst of the wildest day Jaffa has seen since the partition, the Jewish Agency threatened to shoot up roadblocks the Arabs had set up in front of all five gates to the Old City part of Jerusalem.

The Arabs want to starve out some 1,500 Jews—all believed to be Haganah men—who have been besieged in the Jewish section of the Old City since Tuesday. Food trucks have not been able to get convoys since Tuesday and the Arabs want to stop the Haganah from running in food at night.

Witnesses of the blowing up of Higher Committee headquarters in Jaffa said they did not believe more than four or five men were involved. The Stern Gang telephoned the United Press and said it was responsible for the bombing… ‘The front of the building was torn off. All windows were smashed. Doors were buckled. Shops all around the headquarters were badly damaged.

Barclay’s Bank next door caught fire. Pedestrians were blown off their feet for a block or more.’ W. V. Fuller, the Lydda District commissioner, who supervised rescue work, said it looked as ‘if a buzz bomb struck here.’ Besides children, the victims included members of some of the most prominent Arab families in Palestine.

Auni Hannoun, member of the Arab National Committee and a nephew of the mayor of Jaffa, was wounded. A member of the Abu Laban Clan, the most influential in the coastal belt, was wounded.

Authorities could understand how members of the Stern ‘black gang’ could be taken for Arabs in an all-Arab town, but they could still not explain how the Jews got in and out of the check-posts about Jaffa without being found out. Clocks around the headquarters stopped at 12.40 p. m. (5.40 a. m., est), apparently the time the bombs went off.”

How this transcription was made

The other part of this article was added on 2 November 2026 from a second clipping (m012_2.png). Headline corrected on 2 November 2026 from the opening of the article, which the archive did not hold until now: the record read “Jews Blow Up Arabs’ Hotel”, which is the jump slug, not the headline the paper set.

Context added by this archive

The fullest version of the dispatch, on the jump page. It names two of the wounded, reports the Stern Gang telephoning the United Press to claim the bombing, and carries the other half of the week in Jerusalem: fifteen hundred Jews besieged in the Old City whom the Arabs mean to starve out.

The subheadings are “Wildest Day Since Partition,” “Front Torn Off” and “Storm Hampers Rescue.”

Cite this clipping

"Jews Blow Up Arab Chiefs’ Hotel," Portland Press Herald, 5 January 1948, p. 1. Covering Palestine archive, CP-1948-089. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-1948-089