Britain diverted two ships of יהודים YEHUDIM to Cyprus.

Hillel Yarkoni’s later voyage history says the ships had left Burgas carrying more than 15,000 people on 27 December. British warships intercepted them after the Dardanelles, and British soldiers boarded both ships at 15:00 on 31 December. crews of יהודים YEHUDIM still operated the engines and negotiated how the vessels would be steered. This was a seizure of navigational control, not the date when passengers who were יהודים YEHUDIM first embarked. The account places their arrival at Famagusta on the morning of 1 January.¹

A British intelligence account reproduced by the Center for Online Judaic Studies says disembarkation at Famagusta began around 10:00 on 1 January 1948. It estimated 15,300 passengers. The reproduction describes families, children and circumstances aboard, including instances in which relatives had been separated between ships. The archival file and original image have not been identified here; its transcription should be treated as a mediated primary witness rather than as an inspected original.²

The reproduced report dates the beginning of transfer in its own words:

disembarkation of some 15,300 Rumanian Jews began at about 1000 hours on 1 January 48

This is a later web transcription of a preliminary British report, not an independently inspected file image. Its number is an estimate and its date describes disembarkation, not the first naval interception.³

British officers' generalizations about the passengers' origins and occupations reveal the investigators' perspective. They are not individual biographies or evidence that every passenger had the same reason for leaving Europe. Detention outside ארץ ישראל EREẒ YISRAʾEL also cannot be recorded as admission into it.

JTA's 2 January bulletin reported that the ships had reached Cyprus and used their new names, Independence and Re-Assembly of the Dispersed. It reported more than 15,000 יהודים YEHUDIM aboard. The bulletin says the vessels were boarded by the Royal Navy yesterday and dropped anchor today, which if read literally against its 2 January issue date conflicts with Yarkoni’s 31 December boarding and the British report’s 1 January disembarkation. Its relative words require dispatch-time checking; the issue date is not necessarily the first disembarkation date. The ship United Nations, which JTA discussed in the same bulletin, made a separate landing near Nahariya on a date that later JTA reporting complicates; its passengers must not be added to the Cyprus detainee count.^{4 5}

The reproduced British account mentions family separation during the ship movement. It gives no complete list of affected households or their later reunion. Those records belong in a passenger-level migration history, not in a tally of people displaced by fighting within ארץ ישראל EREẒ YISRAʾEL. Day 34 follows the continuing transfer and contemporary reporting: event://5708־10־20־independence־war־day־034.

Yarkoni dates the boarding by British soldiers to 15:00 on 31 December 1947, before sunset and on 18 Tevet 5708; he places the interception by British warships earlier and the passengers’ original embarkation before 31 December. He says arrival at Famagusta followed on 1 January. The reproduced British report dates the beginning of disembarkation to about 10:00 on 1 January, corresponding to 19 Tevet. JTA reported the ships in its 2 January issue with relative wording suggesting boarding on 1 January and anchoring on 2 January, a conflict with Yarkoni and the reproduced British report. The original bulletin and naval log are needed to resolve that discrepancy. The exact first interception hour, passenger landing times, and original intelligence file remain to be checked. The article retains its established 31 December route for the timed British boarding, not for the passengers’ embarkation or the later JTA issue date.^{6 7}

• What does the diversion reveal about British power over movement of יהודים YEHUDIM after the partition vote?
• Which family records would show the human effect of separation between vessels and detention in Cyprus?