Tel Aviv, which has been out of bounds for British troops for several weeks, was entertaining hundreds of tommies this afternoon following easing of the non-fraternization order. Troops may now visit the city between the hours of 2 p.m. and 5:30 p.m.
The one-hour-long country-wide strike called by the Jewish National Council to protest the deportation to Cyprus of the 900-odd refugees who arrived at Haifa during the night aboard the Hamaapil Haalmcni passed quietly. Jewish shops and factories closed down and in most Jewish communities traffic halted for the first quarter of an hour.
The Hamaapil Haalmoni, which also has four other names, was towed into Haifa harbor in the pre-dawn hours this morning and the passengers were transferred to the Ocean Rival across a pontoon bridge between the two vessels. Leading the procession were a number of stretcher cases, victims of a clash during which a British boarding party used clubs, guns, water hoses and tear gas to subdue the Jews. Following the stretcher bearers were a large number of men and women with bandaged heads. It is estimated that fully one-third of the Hamaapil Haalmoni passengers were children.
Before the transshipment began the British commander of the port area announced to the refugees, through a Hebrew interpreter, that “there is a tremendous force behind me, it would be senseless for you to resist.” The Jews answered with a chorus of boos, to the amusement of the battle-dressed troops, but provoked no incident. One of the observers of the operation was a U.S. Army officer, Lt. Col. Chester Degavre, who is in Palestine observing the training of the Sixth Airborne Division, and who told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that his presence was accidental.
During the operation, one of the correspondents witnessing the transfer was ordered out of the port area after he had spoken to an immigrant. In protest all correspondents withdrew, leaving no impartial witnesses to the and of the operation.
When the Hamaapil Haalmoni was intercepted its passongers had already been at sea for 12 days under extremely difficult conditions. After the British marines succeeded in boarding the vessel, the immigrants stripped the ship’s engines of a number of essential parts, forcing the British to tow the vessel. Throughout the tow, which took ten hours, the refugees hampered the British, delaying the journey which is normally completed in two to three hours.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
