Tel Aviv - Yossi Harel, who led a shipload of Jewish refugees trying to reach Israel after World War II, died Saturday at his home in Tel Aviv. He was 90. Harel suffered a heart attack, his family told the Israeli news website Ynet.
Harel commanded the ship Exodus, which was loaded with 4,500 Holocaust survivors bound for Israel, in a mission that was illegal according to Britain, the colonial power in 1947 over Palestine, where Israel was founded a year later.
Enforcing a blockade to keep Jews from entering Palestine, a British Navy vessel stopped Exodus, and three people on board the passenger ship died resisting British forces, before the ship was forced to return to Europe.
A novel and a movie based on the incident later fictionalized the story.
