Evening Star · 30 December 1947

CP-1947-036

47 Are Killed In Bitter Riot at Haifa Refinery

36 Jews, 11 Arabs Slain; Tossing of Bomb Starts Clash

By the Associated Press, Jerusalem

Transcribed from the clipping

“JERUSALEM, Dec. 30.—The bitterest rioting since the United Nations decided to partition Palestine erupted today in the Consolidated refinery at Haifa, where 36 Jews and 11 Arabs were killed. Bloody fighting among about 1,800 Arabs and 400 Jews followed the bombing of a line of 100 Arabs before the employment office. At least 14 Jews and 47 Arabs were wounded. A Haifa informant said the bomb was thrown from a passing Jewish taxi, which sped away, covering its escape with gunfire. Most of the Arabs apparently were killed by the bomb, which shattered two days of quiet in the port city and set off reprisal attacks by Arabs on Jewish workers in the large refinery on the northern outskirts of Haifa. British troops roped off the plant and fought their way through refining stills and tanks to halt the bloodshed… A Jewish source said the bomb probably was hurled by members of Irgun Zvai Leumi, the Jewish underground organization which yesterday blasted and machine-gunned Arabs at the Damascus Gate in Jerusalem. The outbreak raised the Palestine death toll since the United Nations vote for partition November 29 to 478. Throughout the Middle East, 599 have been killed… Arabs, irked by Jewish punitive raids for three successive days, took the initiative in earlier communal rioting in Palestine today as the bloody strife, which broke out after the United Nations decision to partition Palestine, entered its second month.”

Context added by this archive

The refinery killings at Haifa, on the day, with the sequence in the paper’s own sentences: a bomb thrown into a line of a hundred Arabs waiting outside the employment office, then reprisal attacks on Jewish workers inside. Thirty-six Jews and eleven Arabs dead. The archive already holds the page that reports the Balad esh Sheikh raid four days later as revenge for this. The subheadings are “Troops Rope Off Plant,” “Jew Shot in Galilee” and “Arabs Take Initiative.”

Cite this item

"47 Are Killed In Bitter Riot at Haifa Refinery," Evening Star, 30 December 1947. Covering Palestine archive, CP-1947-036. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-1947-036

Elsewhere in the archive

• British Army Store In Palestine Blasted By Jewish TerroristsEvening Star · 16 March 1947 · the same newspaper
• Hotel Bombed In Jerusalem, 50 Are KilledEvening Star · 22 July 1946 · the same newspaper
• Arabs Claim Capture Of Kastel, but Jews Say Town Is TheirsEvening Star · 12 April 1948 · the same newspaper
• 'America Should Lead in Solving Palestine Problem'Elmira Star-Gazette · 1 January 1947 · the same year
• Forcing Palestine to Become a World Problem(newspaper unidentified) · 1 January 1947 · the same year
• Ire of Palestinian Jews Stressed in Book ReviewThe Post-Standard · 9 January 1947 · the same year