CONTROL BY NAVY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26228, 12 August 1946, Page 5

CONTROL BY NAVY

ENTRY TO PALESTINE

ARMED BOARDING PARTIES WIDE VARIETY OF CRAFT LONDON, Aug. 9. The arrival of the cruiser Ajax at Haifa is regarded in London as the first move in the preparation of a new swoop against smuggling Jews into Palestine, says Reuter’s. A week-end signal from London is expected to set ui motion " uperatibn jttouna-up.” 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 intercepted ships carrying immigrants. 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, and must not use violence, but will be armed against active resistance.

The actual strength of naval forces for “ Operation Round-up ” is unknown, but the ships available are in excess of those available in similar circumstances which arose before the war.

Comprehensive Protest by Jews

In Jerusalem to-day the Jewish National Council issued a statement protesting against the obstruction ot refugee ships bound for Palestine, also against General Barker’s order of July 2(j declaring that the community was responsible for the King David Hotel crime, against the alleged maltreatment oi Jewish curiew-breaxers 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 immediate release of members of the Jewish Agency, the Jewish National Council, and others from detention.

The strictest censorship ever imposed on the Palestine press and radio has blacked out all news connected with illegal Jewish immigration, says Reuter’s Jerusalem correspondent. British troops were to-day completing the fortification of strongpoints covering a square mile in the heart of Jerusalem, including outlying Army Government properties. Barbed wire festoons army and Government properties. and machine-gun posts coinmand all entrances to the bombed King David Hotel, which is now completely occupied by military headquarters in Palestine.

Movement Through Germany . Arthur Sholto Douglas, speaking at a press conference in Berlin announced that tighter British controls were being instituted to halt the illegal flow of Poles, including Jews and other non-German displaced persons, to the British zone. He said 5000 displaced persons had entered the zone surreptitiously, mainly through Stettin He had issued instructions to the de' Nazification panels, which amounted to an amnesty for Nazis under 27 years. __ s P eakin g at Frankfurt, General McNarney said the movement of Jews into the American zone in Germany was well organised. “ I am trying to discourage organised movements from othdr areas," he said. “The United States has never adopted a policy that the United States’s zone is a station en route to Palestine or anywhere else.”

General McNarney added that the movement of Jews through Germany was going to cost the American taxpayers £20,000,000 when U.N.R.R.A. ended, leaving to the Americans the responsibility for displaced persons’ camps.