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British Ships Intercept Blockade Runner with 700 Jews Aboard; Trail Second Vessel

February 20, 1948
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A British naval unit today intercepted a blockade runner with 700 refugees aboard end was following a second immigrant ship, waiting for it to enter Palestine waters before boarding it. The captured vessel, one of the Haganah fleet of blockade runners, is named the Amamiuth (Nationhood).

One British soldier was killed and two seriously wounded when they were shot by two Jews in the center of Jerusalem. The Irgun later assumed responsibility for the attack, explaining that it was carried out against “enemy soldiers” in reprisal for the blasting of Jewish-owned houses by British troops. Towards evening two British policemen were seriously wounded near the Machne Yehuda market, while a l7-year-old Jewish youth was seriously injured when he was shot at in the Romema quarter.

Four Arabs were killed and three wounded when a bus in which they wore driving along the Bethlehem road was attacked by the Haganah in reprisal for an Arab attack on a Jewish bus headed for Talpioth in which the driver and three passengers were injured.

Settlers at the Jewish colony of Dan, the southernmost settlement in the Negev, today beat off three heavy attacks by a large band of Arabs. The guerrillas, most of whom were mounted on camels, approached to within several hundred feet of the colony’s defense perimeter before the Haganah man opened fire. Two more waves of infantry and camel cavalry were fought off before the Arabs retreated, taking their dead and wounded with them. There were no Jewish casualties.

Another band was beaten off when it attempted to overwhelm the Jewish settlement of Kfar Yavetz, closest Jewish colony to the Arab stronghold of Tulkarm, from which the raiders came. A British version of the incident, quoting Arab sources, says that the Jews attempted to steal cattle from the Arabs, using mortars to drive the Arabs off. Two Arabs in another Land, near Kfar Uriah, west of Jerusalem, were killed by the Haganah after the guerrillas had caught and murdered a Haganah scout.

ARAB LEGIONNAIRES REPORTED WITHDRAWN FROM HAIFA

Three Jews were killed and seven were wounded when a Jewish-owned bus was fired on by Arabs in Haifa. The Arab Legion unit encamped near Haifa, which has been responsible for a number of such attacks on Jews, was reported today to have been transferred to another area, following repeated protests by the Jewish Agency.

A Jewish read patrol this morning discovered and dismantled a barrel bomb which had been set up as a landmine on the main Jerusalem-Tel Aviv road. A Jew was seriously wounded by sniper fire on the Jaffa-Tel Aviv border. British troops chased off Jewish policemen attempting to halt the looting of Jewish store in the ###tewed Jaffa boundary line sector. After the Jews wore forced to retreat, the Arabs resumed their thievery.

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