The Waterbury Democrat., 1946-08-16
FourGiirIs Given Life In Prison
Youths Attempted d To Blow Up Hoifo Railroad Shops

Jerusalem, Aug. 16-UP) Eighteen young Jews were sentenced to death by . Brit ish military court at Haifa today and then battled police men and troops just outside the courtroom for 10 minutes.
 Four girls of the P Jews tried for blowing up railroad workshops at Haifa in June were given life sentences. The sentencing of the convicted extremists established a new and touchy factor in the troubled situa- tion which had all Palestine on edge.
 The Jewish defendants at Haifa, both youths and girls, loudly challt- ed Jewish anthems while the sen. tences were being read, drowning out parts of the verdict. Start Lively Skirmish
 AS the prisoners were taken from the court, one girl shouted for help, crying, "they are nistreating me"
 The condemned youths respond ed with surge at the cordon Of policemen and troops, and for 10 minutes 8 lively skirTlish went on outside the court.
 The Haifa verdict closely fol- iat t1 Ia illegal Jewish immigrants pene- trated the British blockade of Pal- estine, landed on the beaches near Tel AviV, and faded away among sympathetic residents of the coun- tryside.
 Despite an official denial that the British military cordon around Pal- estlne had leaked for the first time since the rigid new restrictions were clamped on the Holy Land, in- formants in position to know said there was no doubt of the accuracy of the report.
 The group was reported to have splashed ashore under cover of early morning darkness near Tel Aviv. If the account proved true, the Jews would be the first to reach Palestine in defiance of the new British orders that all refugees be shunted to Cyprus.
 1,400 To Be Transferred
 Some 1,4O0 refugees were in Haifa harbor awaiting transfer to Cyprus.
 "A Jerusalem dispatch to the
 British Exchange Telegraph
 Agency said Jewish immigrants
 made landings at three separate
 points along the Palestine coast
 today. It said all Of them came
 from one ship.0
 A Tel Aviv informant said the Jews landed on the beaches and in less than half an hour were "ab- soroed" in homes nearby. He said police had not acted, but were be. lieved to be discussing what to do.
 Other reports circulated without conflrmation that 200 illegal immi- grants escaped from Haifa, where they were held, and got to Tel Aviy.
 Transports Enroute Back
 Two British transports, Empire Rival and Empire Haywood, were reported enroute back. to Haifa from Cyprus for second load of de- portees, Earlier this week they car. ried 1900 protesting Jews to deten. tion camps on the rocky Mediter. ranean island.
 Two boatloads of refugees have entered Haifa harbor since the i'm. migration clampdown. The Katriel Yaffee, with SIS men, women and children, arrived the day of the first Cyprus transfer. Yesterday the 300- ton motor schooner named the Twenty brought 800.
 British policy calls for transfer to Cyprus of all uncertified im,ni- grants who arrived after Aug. II.
 Cyprus dispatches disclosed that the British were having trouble with the first refugee group taken there. Refugees disembarking from the Empire Rival, and Empire Heywood clashed with troops, shouting we want to leave Cyprus" Twenty per- sons were reported admitted to mili- tary hospitals there.