Columbia Record · 8 December 1947
CP-1947-025
Palestine Riots Claim 90 Lives
Mobilizations Intensified For Expected Showdown
The Associated Press, Jerusalem
Transcribed from the clipping
“JERUSALEM, Dec. 8—(AP)—Eight Jews and an Arab died today in bitter, continuing communal strife over the partition of Palestine while both sides intensified mobilizations for the expected showdown.
Unofficial tallies show 90 persons have been killed in nine days in wrangles over the future of the country, which the British said they intended to quit as mandate power next May 15. Five Jews were killed and a number of Arab stores and houses were set afire in a renewal of the fighting on the border between Jewish Tel Aviv and Arab Jaffa.
Numerous Jews and Arabs were wounded in sporadic exchanges of small arms fire in various parts of the country. Seven Jews and an Arab were killed during the night.
Sharing the spotlight with the situation in Palestine were developments in Cairo, where leaders of the seven member nations of the Arab league met to decide the steps they should take to prevent implementation of the partitioning plan. Some observer’s thought that the meeting might fix a zero hour for a general Arab uprising throughout the Middle East.
Crowds of Arabs were reported lining up before ‘recruiting centers’ in all Middle Eastern countries, and in Palestine the Jewish press called Jewish youths to register for security duty at registration place which will be opened tomorrow.
Irgun Zvai Leumi, extreme underground group, indicated that it was ready to unite with the more moderate Hagana in the event of an open Arab-Jewish war. Irgun officials issued a communique declaring: ‘There is no doubt that if this war should break out it will be for the very existence and future of all Jews. In such a war Hebrew forces will be united.’”
Context added by this archive
Ninety dead in nine days, printed in one column beside the solution to a radio contest. The subhead is “8 Killed During Night.”
Cite this clipping
"Palestine Riots Claim 90 Lives," Columbia Record, 8 December 1947, p. 1. Covering Palestine archive, CP-1947-025. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-1947-025
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- PALESTINE YOUTHS SPORTS CONSCIOUSThe New York Times · 21 February 1947
- The Truth Behind Those HeadlinesSt. Louis Jewish Light · 6 March 1947
- All 334 clippings from the 1940s →
In these collections
Last updated 2 November 2026
This record is part of Covering Palestine, an archive of American newspaper clippings about Palestinians, 1724 to 2023. Researched and assembled by Maria Robles.
The clipping belongs to the newspaper that printed it, or to the news agency that supplied the copy. It is reproduced here for research, criticism and commentary. A city here is where the newspaper was published, not where the story came from, and on most records it was taken from the masthead.
Something wrong here, or something you know about this clipping? The archive is still being built and corrections are wanted: maria@rozumstudio.com, quoting CP-1947-025.
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