Jaffa——‘Ghost City’

Important Arab Center Is Deserted, Sealed Off by Strong Jewish Forces

By Daniel De Luce, Associated Press Staff Writer, Jaffa

Jaffa——‘Ghost City’ — San Francisco Chronicle, 9 May 1948 — San Francisco Chronicle · San Francisco, California · 9 May 1948

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Transcribed from the clipping

“JAFFA, May 8—Jaffa, largest Arab city in Palestine a few days ago, now is a forsaken hostage of the Jewish state. If it were not for British tanks and artillery—all due to leave next Saturday—a corporal’s guard of Jews could march through Jaffa today without firing a shot. Sandbagged Arab gunposts are deserted.

Less than 100 Arab civilians can be counted in the streets. They are the hungry, impoverished remnants of a population which numbered 90,000 until two weeks ago. The Jews control the territory around Jaffa to a depth of 10 miles. No Arab vehicles can enter or leave the city without passing within close range of Jewish machine guns and mortars.

A few score Arab refugees are boarding two small coastal sailing vessels in the ancient harbor, the last of an Arab exodus unequaled in the modern history of the Holy Land… Jaffa’s remaining inhabitants, who now scarcely exceed 2000, are near starvation. At the French Hospital on Jaffa Hill, Catholic sisters are caring for the sick, wounded and orphans.

Nowhere else in the city is there any public relief for victims of the undeclared war… The airport, 11 miles southeast of Jaffa, is deserted. Arab shepherds graze their flocks along the runways. Except for Gaza in the south, the Arabs have no adequate Palestine port left.

Off Tel Aviv 16 big ocean-going freighters are discharging thousands of tons of supplies for the Jewish state. Motoring across Arab populated Palestine from the Jordan river to Jaffa, I have seen no signs that the Arabs retain any military punch. Perhaps 150,000 Arab townsmen now are refugees, but the peasants cling to their land, regardless of their fear of Jewish arms.”

Context added by this archive

The same Daniel De Luce dispatch the Evening Star ran, here on a full page with a hand-drawn map of Palestine across the top and a Stromberg-Carlson radio-phonograph advertisement under it. The subheadings are “British Moved In” and “Full Warehouses.”

This version ends on a sentence the Star’s did not carry: the peasants cling to their land, regardless of their fear.

Cite this clipping

"Jaffa——‘Ghost City’," San Francisco Chronicle, 9 May 1948, p. 1. Covering Palestine archive, CP-1948-105. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-1948-105