British Mandate: A Survey of Palestine: Volume I - Page 81. Historical Summary: Period IX: September, 1945. The agitation for a Jewish State and unrestricted immigration

CHAPTER II.

September, 1045.

The 1350 Jewish refugees who had been detained in Mauritius since December, 1940, were permitted to return to Palestine on admission as immigrants within the White Paper quota.

A revival of the illegal immigration traffic began in the autumn of the year and evoked a determination by the Jewish official organizations in Palestine and the Jewish public as a whole to promote it by all means in their power and to resist the search of Jewish colonies for immigrants and arms. On 2nd September 150 illegal immigrants arrived on the s.s. "Ville d'Oran". On 6th October a party of Syrian Jews who had entered Palestine illegally made their way into the Jewish settlement of Kfar Giladi on the northern frontier, after assaulting two officers of the Trans-J ordan Frontier Force who had questioned them. A cordon of the Trans-Jordan Frontier Force was thrown round the settlement. Attempts were then made by Jews from neighbouring settlements to break through the cordon and to disarm some of the soldiers; these attempts were resisted with rifle fire by which eight Jews were wounded. On 10th October the camp at Athlit for the clearance of immigrants was attacked by armed Jews who assisted 208 illegal immigrants to escape. A Christian woman in the camp was gagged and died from suffocation. During subsequent operations a British constable was shot dead and an Arab constable wounded by Jews in ambush. Nine out of a number of the illegal immigrants who were subsequently arrested on Mount Carmel were rescued by a large party of Jews armed with pickhelves, the police in charge of the arrested persons having forborne to use firearms. On 22nd November the Greek schooner "Dimitrios" landed a number of illegal immigrants, but, before the operation was complete, was seized by the Royal Navy with immigrants on board. On the night of 24th November, in retaliation, bodies of armed Jews attacked the police coastguard stations at Givat Olga and Sidna Ali. The attackers were driven off but the buildings were wrecked and police personnel wounded. The following day police dogs trailed the attackers to Givat Haim , Rishpon and other Jewish settlements in the vicinity of the coast-guard stations. Subsequent police searches were resisted and troops were called in to assist and to cordon the area. Large crowds of Jews from the surrounding district attempted to impede search operations and break the cordons. At one point fire was opened on the troops from the flanks of an advancing body of Jews led by a man on horseback. The troops returned the fire and six Jews were killed and a number

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