Jews Steal Into Jaffa, Set Blast Killing 14 Arabs and Injuring 90

Two Other Explosions Do Extensive Damage

United Press, Jerusalem

Jews Steal Into Jaffa, Set Blast Killing 14 Arabs and Injuring 90 — Times Herald, 5 January 1948 — Times Herald · 5 January 1948

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“JERUSALEM, Jan. 4 (UP). Jews, dressed as Arabs, slipped into all-Arab Jaffa today and blew up the crowded headquarters of the Arab higher committee and Arab underground army Najada with a truckload of dynamite hidden in orange crates. An official British report said 14 Arabs were killed and about 90 wounded, 20 seriously.

The British said many of the victims were Arab refugees, including a heavy proportion of children, who had been sheltered temporarily in the building for lack of safe homes elsewhere. Officials believed that the casualty total would mount. The air about the wreckage of the headquarters was filled late tonight with the groans, shouts and curses of the wounded and trapped.

Palestine government, British army and Arab Red Crescent (Cross) ambulances were still hauling off the wounded and all three hospitals in Jaffa were full.

Hospital staffs could not handle all the patients and an emergency call was sent for every available Arab physician in Jaffa… Witnesses said the Jews — a spokesman for the Stern gang said they belonged to his organization — drove two trucks up to the front of the building and parked them. One truck was loaded with explosives.

According to witnesses, all of the Jews got into the other truck. Since they looked like Arabs in their Arab garments, none suspected them of being up to anything.

They sped away in the one truck and a few seconds later the dynamite in the truck that had been left behind went off in the most violent explosion since the King David hotel in Jerusalem was blasted in 1946, and more than 100 persons were killed.

The explosion ripped the front from the building, smashed all its windows, buckled doors and extensively damaged shops in the mercantile center around the structure. Rescue work was hampered by a fierce wind and rainstorm that has been beating Palestine more than 24 hours.”

Context added by this archive

The phrase is in the fourth paragraph, in British official language, on 4 January 1948: Arab refugees, sheltering in a building in Jaffa for lack of safe homes elsewhere. That is three and a half months before Haifa and four and a half months before any Arab army crossed a border. The subheadings are “More Believed in Ruins” and “Storm Hinders Rescuers.”

Cite this clipping

"Jews Steal Into Jaffa, Set Blast Killing 14 Arabs and Injuring 90," Times Herald, 5 January 1948, p. 1. Covering Palestine archive, CP-1948-090. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-1948-090