The Haifa Oil Refinery massacre took place on 30 December 1947 in Mandatory Palestine. After six Arabs were killed by grenades thrown from a speeding car by members of the Zionist paramilitary organisation Irgun into a crowd of Arabs waiting outside the refinery hoping to find work as day laborers[1], between 39[2] and 41[3][1] Jewish refinery workers were killed by their Arab coworkers in a mass lynching—the casualty counts for the incident are disputed.[1][2][3][4]
Six Arabs were killed and 42 were wounded after Irgun members threw a number of hand grenades at a crowd of about 100 day-labourers waiting at a bus stop outside the main gate of the then British-owned Haifa Oil Refinery. Minutes after the Irgun attack, Arab refinery workers and others began attacking the Jewish refinery workers, resulting in 39 deaths and 49 injuries, before the British Army and Palestine Police units arrived to put an end to the violence.[5] This came to be known as the "Haifa Oil Refinery massacre". Haganah later retaliated by attacking two nearby Arab villages in what became known as the Balad al-Shaykh massacre, where between 21 and 70 Arabs were killed, while skirmishes followed in Haifa.
Background
Relations between Jews and Arabs at the refinery had been known to be good. However, tensions rose in 1947–48 in the wake of the 1947 UN Partition Plan.[6] On 30 December 1947, Irgun militants hurled two bombs from a passing car into a crowd of Arab workers, 6 workers were killed and 42 wounded. Irgun, who planned and carried out the attack on the day-laborers, said it was in retaliation for recent attacks elsewhere on Jews in Palestine.[5] Arab workers stormed the refinery armed with tools and metal rods, beating 39 Jewish workers to death and wounding 49. British forces arrived only an hour after the riot started.[6] According to the Jewish Agency, some Arab workers helped their Jewish co-workers hide or escape.
The Jewish Agency condemned the Irgun for the "act of madness" that preceded the killing of Jewish workers at the Haifa oil refinery, but at the same time authorized retaliation. The Haganah mounted a retaliatory raid which became known as the Balad al-Shaykh massacre on the villages of Balad al-Shaykh and nearby Hawassa, where some of the Arab refinery workers lived. They fired into and blew up houses. Some women and children were injured when, according to Haganah accounts, Arabs returned fire from the houses. Haganah estimates of the number of Arabs killed varied from 21 to 70, including one woman. In addition, two Haganah soldiers were killed during the fight.[7] Zachary Lockman wrote that, "... the Jewish attackers killed some sixty men, women, and children and destroyed several dozen houses.[8]
References
- ^ a b c Lockman, Zachary (10 July 1996). "The Descent Into Madness". Comrades and Enemies. University of California Press. pp. 183–184. ISBN 9780520204195.
- ^ a b "39 Jews massacred at oil refinery". The Palestine Post. 31 December 1947. p. 1. Retrieved 22 March 2024.
- ^ a b "41 Jews Lynched At Haifa Oil Refinery After Irgun Bombs Killed Six Arabs" (PDF). Jewish Telegraph Agency. 31 December 1947.
- ^ Commission of enquiry report [into the Haifa Oil Refinery Massacre], Palestine Post, 20 February 1948.
- ^ a b Pappé 1999, p. 119.
- ^ a b "MidEast Web Historical Documents: Refinery Riots". mideastweb.org.
- ^ Benny Morris, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited, p101.
- ^ Zachary Lockman, Comrades and Enemies: Arab and Jewish Workers in Palestine, 1906–1948
Bibliography
- Pappé, Ilan (1999), The Israel/Palestine Question, Routledge, ISBN 978-0-415-16947-9
External links
- "39 Jews massacred at oil refinery". The Palestine Post. 31 December 1947. pp. 1, 3. Retrieved 2 August 2020. continuation
- 'The British Withdrawal From Palestine: Possible Advance of Date By Six Weeks, 17 Killed in Attack on Arab Village', The Times, Friday, 2 January 1948; pg. 4; Issue 50958; col A.