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Brief narrative |
On 18 June 1936, British authorities blew up and destroyed a large part of the city of Yafa, with an estimated 220 homes demolished and around 6,000 people forced out of their homes. In addition to this, in the suburbs surrounding Yafa they destroyed 100 huts in al-Jabaliya, 300 in Abu Kabir, 250 in al-Shaikh Murad, and 75 in `Arab al-Dawudi. It is evident that the inhabitants of the Yaffa neighborhoods and outskirts whose homes were destroyed were poor peasants who had moved to the towns from the countryside. As for the villages, al-Sifri counted 143 homes razed under pretexts directly related to the revolution. These homes belonged to poorer peasants, some medium peasants, and a very small number of feudal land-owning families.
Issa Sifri, Arab Palestine Under the Mandate & Zionism (Jaffa: The New Palestine Bookshop, 1937) Vol. II, p. 93, cited in Ghassan Kanafani, transl. Hazem Jamjoum, The Revolution of 1936–1939 in Palestine (New York: 1804 Books, pp. 50-51.
220 homes in Yafa, 6,00 evicted
568 homes x 5 = 2,840
788 homes total
8,840 total evicted |