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)
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Seems like Israel is indeed planning to implement Ariel Sharon's "finger plan" from the 70's, of carving up the Gaza Strip with "fingers" of Israeli settlements. The plan has been revived by figures in the Israeli far right in the early days of the genocide (see following tweet)
This map was published in October 2023 in a religious Zionist paper. It depicts four of the five "fingers" from Sharon's plan. The fifth finger was supposed to seperate between Rafah and the Sinai settlements. In its place we have the "Philadelphi Axis" now.
I really have to write a proper thread about this. Seems like Israel is attempting to implement several different plans, each of which was considered in October 2023 to be "delusiobal", and combine them into one big "final solution".
🧵 I feel awful not replying to some people from Gaza who contact me for help with their campaigns, I just get so many messages and I can't find the time to always respond. So I'm gonna pin this running thread - every time you stop by my profile, please RT a campaign or donate.
🧵"If looks could kill, I wouldn't be here anymore. That's what I think when the two young Palestinians lift their heads up and look me straight in the eyes. There's so much open, blatant hatred in their gaze..."
Dana Spector is a long-time mainstream pseudo-journalist who normally writes personal columns and braindead lifestyle/feel-good pieces. A supposed "liberal". Yet with her column for Yedioth Ahronoth's last Friday's paper, about a mixed male-female battalion ("Panther Battalion) stationed in the West Bank village of Hableh, she managed to produce one of the most racist, demonizing and dehumanizing pieces I've seen, which, as you know, is not an easy feat in ZNazi Isra-hell.
Following are translated excerpts from her column, in the order they appear in the full piece. Link to the full column (in Hebrew) can be found at the end of this long thread.
Unless I mention otherwise, quotes are by the author.
In the photo: Dana Spector and Israeli soldiers in the home of a Palestinian family which was turned into an army command post.
(continues the first excerpt) "I admit, I'm scared now. Their gaze brings to mind the sentence that Liri Elbag said, how the most powerful thing she remembers from the terrible morning of October 7th were the looks of the terrorists when they entered the bomb shelter, "a look of pure evil." One of the guys is thin and bony, even from here I can see his noticeable Adam's apple. The other is muscular, wearing a black shirt with some kind of Arabic print, I wouldn't be surprised if it's Hamas merchandise. Until these two charming men gave me the look, I thought they were just two innocent residents sitting on the sidewalk and catching some sun."
Regarding the female soldiers: "A charming group of 20-something girls who constantly made me laugh. It wasn't until we started talking about what they do in their service that I realized that these weren't little girls, they were hardened fighting machines. They don't even blink when they are woken up at three in the morning and sent to raid a dark house to get the terrorists hiding there. Danger lurks for them and the boys who serve with them at every turn, even on the most routine patrols."
🧵Running thread of horrible shit from Israeli Telegram channels, following tonight's massacre.
On the Telegram channel of Judeo-Nazi influencer Yoav Eliasi ("The Shadow", 330k subscribers):
"Update from Gaza: the number of Nazis eliminated tonight is 350. May there be more"