One Jewish woman was killed, another Jew wounded, and thirty-six arrested early this morning in the vicinity of Tel Aviv during an unsuccessful attempt to draw attention from the landing of 240 visaless Jewish immigrants from a motor schooner bearing the name of Brigadier Orde Wingate, pro-Zionist British general killed in a plane crash during the war.
The schooner, which was intercepted by a British destroyer inside Palestine territorial waters, near Tel Aviv, was brought into Haifa today flying the Union Jack and the blue-white Zionist flag. Its passengers were allowed to disembark under heavy military guard, and were immediately taken to a detention camp. The refugees, who boarded the vessel at a south Italian port, come from Hungary, Poland and other Eastern European countries.
As the vessel approached the Palestine coast, an attack took place on the northern police station at Tel Aviv, for the purpose of drawing the police away from the harbor area. Jewish resistance organizations also blocked all roads leading to the shore and laid mines at the railway crossing in the center of Tel Aviv. In some places they even removed railway tracks. The police opened fire with machine guns and later carried out extensive searches.
GOVERNMENT REVEALS DETAILS IN OFFICIAL COMMUNIQUE
An official communique issued this afternoon by the Palestine Government says that the schooner “carrying some 240 illegal Jewish immigrants” was intercepted late last night by the British destroyer “Chevron.” The communique gives the name of the schooner as “Kismet Adalla,” Eighty-nine of the immigrants were young women and the remainder young men.
During the early part of the evening, the communique continued, a number of incidents occurred in various parts of the Lydda district. Twenty persons were arrested at the Tel Aviv shore for loitering.
Near Sarona, which is in the vicinity of Tel Aviv, a police patrol, which challenged several persons who were acting suspiciously, was met with rifle fire. It replied, pinning the suspects down to a nearby house into which they had fled. Three men were captured in the building, but the others escaped. A seriously wounded Jewish girl, Beracha Fluid, was found in the house. She died shortly after being taken to a hospital.
A quantity of arms, and signs in Hebrew and in English reading: “Beware of Mines” were found near Sarona, the communique revealed. It reports that the neighboring roads were also mined. A number of streets in Tel Aviv were blocked–especially Dizengoff Street–by cars parked cross-wise.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.
