Jews Break Palestine Blockade, Associated Press, St. Paul Pioneer Press, Jan. 2, 1948.

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JERUSALEM-(AP)-A mass attempt to break the Palestine blockade partially succeeded Thursday when some hundreds of Jewish immigrants waded ashore from a beached ship while the British were busy herding more than 11,000 passengers from two other vessels into Cyprus detention camps.

Inside the Holy Land Jews and Arabs continued sporadic gunplay. In this first day of the new year three Jews and seven Arabs lost their lives, bringing to 501 the unofficial death toll since the United Nations voted five weeks ago to partition Palestine.

There was one report, without official confirmation, that at least 40 Arabs were killed during the day. Jewish and Arab communities reinforced themselves for expected bloody struggles.

The ship which beat the British naval patrol ran aground at Nahariya at the extreme northern end of the Palestine coast. Hagana, the Jewish defense organization, said all 700 Jews aboard this ship now were inside the “promised land.”

Troops of the British Sixth airborne division sped to the scene and held 200 Jews under guard along the beach. Hagana claimed the uncertified immigrants were safely out of reach and that the British soldiers merely had rounded up residents of the Nahariya area.

Meanwhile, hundreds of British commandos, garrison troops and civil policemen lined the docks at Famagusta, Cyprus, as more than 11,000 other uncertified Jewish immigrants filed quietly off their converted cargo ships, the Pan Crescent and Pan York.