BIG DRIVE AGAINST SABOTAGE

Chronicle (Levin), 27 August 1946, Page 5

BIG DRIVE AGAINST SABOTAGE

h Press Assn.

BRITISH TROOPS SURR0UND JEWISH SETTLEMENT

By Telegrap

-Copyright

Received Tuesday, 10.40 a.m. LONDON, Aug. 26. In a new military operation to prevent the sabotage of British ships in Palestine ports, more than 4000 British troops, with tanks, armoured cars and bloodhounds, surrounded the Jewish fishing settlement of Sdothyorm. While two planes circled overhead and police launches patrolled off the beach, troops escorted the.settlement's 200 mhabitants to a temporary enclosure.

The troops' search for lirnpet mines, whieh Jewish terrorists have used against two British ships, proved fruitless. After the search the troops rounded up the entire male population of Sdothyom and removed them to Rafa internment camp. The men at first refused to come from their ramshackle bungalows, but decided that resistance was useless and they were led off to hastily-erected barbed-wire pens. Brigadier R. H. Anderson, who is commanding the operations, said that no arms or explosives had thus far been discovered, but equipment found, leading to a suspicion that the place has been used as a landing spot for illegal immigrants, included rubber dinghies, a bundle of passports and a number of trucks filled with clothing.

The Exchange Telegraph's Haifa correspondent reports that strong reinforcements of military and police have arrived at Acre prison, where eighteen members of the ; Stern Gang are under sentence of 1 death and fourteen Arabs are in ; their sixth day of a hunger strike. I The searchers used for the first time, dogs specially trained in IGermany for detecting metals. Two j hundred illegal immigrants landed : at Sdothyom on August 16. j The Polish Government; is now lissuing passports to Jewish immijgrants and the Czech Govermnent is granting vizas for 900 daily to ! pass across the country, says the ! Daily Telegraph's Prague corres{pondent. The Czech Government is daily placing a special train at the Jews' disposal, permitting tran;sit to the number the American jzone will accept.