Haifa oil refinery massacre
The Haifa oil refinery massacre occurred on 30 December 1947, during the final months of British rule in Palestine. An Irgun bombing killed six Arab labourers at the entrance to Consolidated Refineries. Arab refinery workers and others then attacked Jewish employees, killing 39 Jews.[1]
The bombing and killings
The bombs were thrown from a passing vehicle into a crowd of Arab labourers at the refinery gate. Inside the complex, attackers sought out Jewish employees and beat or stabbed them. Some forced their way into the offices where Jewish clerks had taken shelter. British troops eventually dispersed the crowd, and police and soldiers escorted surviving Jewish workers home. The refinery temporarily closed.[2]
The Jewish Telegraphic Agency’s report published on 31 December initially gave 41 Jewish deaths; Wilks’s later account gives 39. The initial report also recorded more than 40 Arabs wounded by the bombs and at least seven Jews wounded in the subsequent attack. These were early returns from a rapidly developing emergency.[2][1]
Condemnation and reprisals
Jewish leaders condemned the bombing, and Haganah subsequently denounced Irgun’s action. JTA reported that the bombing endangered a proposed Haganah–Irgun agreement.[2][3] In the Yishuv Defence Committee’s later discussion, Yaakov Riftin said that some Arab refinery workers had protected Jews during the killings.[4]
On the night of 31 December 1947–1 January 1948, Haganah forces raided Balad al-Shaykh and Hawassa, where many refinery workers lived. The raid killed Arab residents, including women and children. Both episodes form part of the chronology of killings and massacres in Mandatory Palestine.[1][3]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Ivor Wilks, A Once and Past Love: Palestine 1947, Israel 1948: A Memoir, Northwestern University, Program of African Studies, Special Papers Series (2011), printed pp. 18–22.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Jewish Telegraphic Agency, report of 31 December 1947.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Jewish Telegraphic Agency, report of 2 January 1948.
- ↑ Benny Morris, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited, Cambridge University Press (2004), printed pp. 101–102.
