More than 100 crewmen of a strikebound vessel in Haifa were arrested today while seamen demonstrating in the port area clashed with police. Israel’s maritime strike showed no sign of tapering off. The Defense Ministry took a hand in the situation today by sending draft notices to striking seamen, including four out of five top officers of the union, calling them to service in the army.
The crew and officers of the S.S. Negba were arrested by hundreds of policemen when they refused to release from lock-up 11 policemen sent aboard earlier to break up their sitdown strike. During the same period some 100 seamen in the port area held a demonstration in support of the Negba’s crew and clashed with police. In the ensuing scrap a number of policemen were injured.
A Ministry of Defense spokesman explained today that the draft notices had been sent the seamen because by refusing to work they had automatically removed themselves from conscription-exempt status as essential workers. While Italian seamen, flown here to operate the strikebound vessels, were waiting to sail the Negba, another Israeli vessel, the Tamar, made port, but it was not known whether her crew would join the strike. The Artza, from which seamen were dragged off by policemen yesterday, sailed today with a “volunteer” crew for Genoa and Marseilles.
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