Thread by @ireallyhateyou

1/8
Snowballing nakba: on December 30th 1947, three IZL men - Moshe Levi, Shimon Damti and Moshe Bodek - arrived at the gates of the oil refinery in Haifa, where Arabs and Jews worked side by side. The men threw several homemade bombs, killing 6 Arab workers and injuring 42.

2/8
Immediately after the bombing, Arab workers started attacking their Jewish co-workers, using rods and knives. 39 Jews were massacred, many were injured. Only about an hour after the incident started, British police arrived and dispersed the crowd.

3/8
The next day, on new year's eve, more than 100 Zionist militants arrived at nearby villages Balad al-Shaykh and Hawassa, where some of the Arab workers lived. The order given to the Haganah men was "to kill maximum adult men, destroy furniture etc."

4/8
The Jewish forces started shooting indiscriminately and blowing up houses. Men were pulled out from their homes and shot. About 70 inhabitants were killed, among them some women and children. Three Haganah fighters were killed as well.

5/8
Following the massacre, many families from the two villages fled to Nablus, Jenin and Acre.
The Haganah strike had a demoralising effect on the Arabs of Haifa, and some started fleeing the city in fear. By April 1948 almost half of the local Arabs were gone.

6/8
On 21-22 April, Haifa was officialy taken by the Yishuv forces. By mid-May, only 4,000 Arabs were still in Haifa, out of the pre-war population of about 65,000. Reports of the fall of Haifa spread quickly all around the country.

7/8
Following the fall of Haifa and other incidents, such as the Deir Yassin massacre, the Arab morale reached a new low. Panic spread, and many Arab villages were abandoned by their freightened inhabitants. The mass exodus helped the Jewish forces to take over the whole region.

8/8
Last month, Moshe Bodek, probably the last man alive from the three IZL militants who initiated the oil refinery bombing, died at the age of 93.
A local Haifa news website eulogized him, saying he was "an admired, beloved teacher".

Images:
1. The oil refinery in Haifa
2. Palestine Post, 31.12.1948
3. Balad al-Shaykh in a British map from the 40's
4. "Dozens killed in two punitive actions taken by the Haganah, in Haifa and Salama", Haaretz, 2.1.1948
5. Haganah troops in Haifa, 1948

6. Palestinian Arabs leaving Haifa, April 1948
7. Palestinian Arabs at the Haifa port, on their way to a new life as refugees. May 1948 (photo by John Philips)
8. Moshe Bodek (photo by Haaretz)