SIGNS OF NEW SWOOP SEEN

Chronicle (Levin), 10 August 1946, Page 5

SIGNS OF NEW SWOOP SEEN

Press Assn

PREVENTiNG SMUCGI* OF JEWS 1NT0 PALESTINE

By Telearavh

.-Copyright

Received Saturday, 10.30 a.m. LONDON, August 9. _ The arrival of the cruiser Ajax at Haifa is regarded in T.ondon as the first move in the preparation -of a new swoop against the smuggling of Jews into Palestine, says Reuter's. A week-end signal from London is expected to set a round-up in motion. Armed boarding parties are likely to - be drafted to destroyers, corvettes and frigates which are patrolling the sea lanes of the Mediterranean. These parties will board the intercepted ships carrying immigrants, and they will be responsible for the maintenance of order until the ships are escorted to pre-arranged ports.

The parties are regarded as prize crews. They must not use violence, but are to be armed against active resistance. The actual strength of the naval forces for the operation round-up is unknown, but the ships available are in excess of those available in similar circumstances which had arisen before the war. In Jerusalem to-day the Jewfsh National Council issued a statement, protesting against the obstruetion of refugee ships from Teaching Palestine. The statement

falso protested against the order of I the General Offlcer Commanding, 'Sir Evelyn Barker, on July 16, declaring that the community was responsible for crime, against the alleged mal-treatment of Jewisii curfew breakers in military detention camps, against the deprival of traditional rights in regard to the Wailing "Wall, and against the search and curfew in Tel Aviv. The statement urged the limmediate release of members of ithe Jewish Agency, Jewish National | Council and others from detenj tion."