RAID IN PALESTINE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26242, 28 August 1946, Page 5

RAID IN PALESTINE

SETTLEMENT SURROUNDED SEARCH FOR LIMPET MINES 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 Sdoth-Yom. While two planes circled overhead and police launches patrolled off the beach, troops escorted the settlement’s 200 inhabitants to a temporary enclosure. The troops' search for limpet mines which the Jewish terrorists have used against two British ships was fruitless. Male Population Interned After the search the troops rounded up the entire male of Sdoth'-Yom, numbering 94. and removed A hem to the Rafa internment camp. “ The men at first refused to come from their ramshackle bungalows, but they finally decided that resistance was useless. They were led off to hastily-erected barbed wire pens. Brigadier R. H. Anderson, commanding the operations, said that no arms and explosives had so far been discovered, but equipment found led to the suspicion that the place was 0 used as a landing spot for illegal immigrants. The equipment included rubber dinghies, a bundle of passports, and a number of trunks filled with clothing. The Exchange Telegraph’s Haifa correspondent reports that strong reinforcements of military and police have arrived at Acre prison, where 18 members of the Stern gang are under sentence of death and where 14 Arabs are in the sixth day of a hunger strike. The Foreign Office announced that the conference on Palestine will open in London on September 9. Invitations have already been sent out to the Governments of the Arab States, the Jewish Agency, and the Arab Higher Executive in Palestine. Arab Stipulations for Talks The Arab Higher Executive sent a memorandum to the High Commissioner, Sir Alan Cunningham, in Jerusalem, stating the conditions under which it is prepared to participate in the talks. Including the additional stipulation that the Grand Mufti must attend, the conditions are, first, the rejection of any form of partition; secondly, the complete independence of Palestine; thirdly, acceptance of the idea of independence as a basis for negotiations without reference to the Balfour Declaration or the League of Nations mandate; fourthly, no Jews are to sit at the conference. Sir Alan Cunningham told Jamal Husseini, who handed him the memorandum, that there would be certain difficulties involved .in meeting the Higher Committee’s request that the Grand Mufti should be invited. He also said it was desirable that representatives of Arab municipalities, commerce, and labour be invited. Jamal Husseini replied that the committee did not favour this.