British Mandate
Haifa was captured from the Ottomans in September 1918 by Indian horsemen serving in the British Army after overrunning Turkish positions armed with spears and swords.[43] On 22 September, British troops were heading to Nazareth when a reconnaissance report was received indicating that the Turks were leaving Haifa. The British made preparations to enter the city and came under fire in the Balad al-Sheikh district (today Nesher). After the British regrouped, an elite unit of Indian horsemen were sent to attack the Turkish positions on the flanks and overrun their artillery guns on Mount Carmel.[43]
Under the British Mandate, Haifa became an industrial port city.[44] The Hejaz railway and the Technion were built at this time.[39] Haifa District was then home to approximately 20,000 inhabitants, 96 percent of them Arabs (82 percent Muslim and 14 percent Christian), and four percent Jews. Over the next few decades the number of Jews increased steadily, due to immigration, especially from Europe. The Arab immigration on the other hand swelled by influx of Arabs, coming mainly from surrounding villages as well as Syrian Hauran.[45] The Arab immigration mainly came as a result of prices and salary drop.[45] The Arab population of Haifa almost doubled between 1922 and 1931, increasing from 18,404 to 34,560.[45]
By 1945 the population had shifted to 53 percent Arab (33 percent Muslim, 20 percent Christian) and 47 percent Jewish.[46] In 1947, about 70,910 Arabs (41,000 Muslims, 29,910 Christians) and 74,230 Jews were living there.[47] The Christian community were mostlyGreek-Melkite Catholics.
The 1947 UN Partition Plan designated Haifa as part of the proposed Jewish state. On 30 December 1947, members of the Irgun, a Jewish underground militia, threw bombs into a crowd of Arabs outside the gates of the Consolidated Refineries in Haifa, killing six and injuring 42. In response Arab employees of the company killed 39 Jewish employees in what became known as the Haifa Oil Refinery massacre.[48] The JewishHaganah militia retaliated with a raid on the Arab village of Balad al-Shaykh, where many of the Arab refinery workers lived, in what became known as the Balad al-Shaykh massacre.[49] Control of Haifa was critical in the ensuing Arab-Israeli war, since it was the major industrial and oil refineryport in British Palestine.[48]
British forces in Haifa redeployed on 21 April 1948, withdrawing from most of the city while still maintaining control over the port facilities. Two days later the downtown, controlled by a combination of local and foreign (ALA) Arab irregulars was assaulted by Jewish forces in Operation Bi'ur Hametz, by the Carmeli Brigade of the Haganah, commanded by Moshe Carmel.[48] The operation led to a massive displacement of Haifa's Arab population. According to The Economist at the time, only 5,000-6,000 of the city's 62,000 Arabs remained there by 2 October 1948.[50]
Contemporaneous sources emphasized the Jewish leadership's attempt to stop the Arab exodus from the city and the Arab leadership as a motivating factor in the refugees' flight. According to the British district superintendent of police, "Every effort is being made by the Jews to persuade the Arab populace to stay and carry on with their normal lives, to get their shops and business open and to be assured that their lives and interests will be safe."[51] Time Magazine wrote on 3 May 1948:
- The mass evacuation, prompted partly by fear, partly by orders of Arab leaders, left the Arab quarter of Haifa a ghost city ... By withdrawing Arab workers their leaders hoped to paralyze Haifa.
Benny Morris said Haifa's Arabs left due to of a combination of Zionist threats and encouragement to do so by Arab leaders. Ilan Pappéwrites that the shelling culminated in an attack on a Palestinian crowd in the old marketplace using three-inch (76 mm) mortars on 22 April 1948.[52][53][54] Shabtai Levy, the Mayor of the city, and some other Jewish leaders urged Arabs not to leave. According to Ilan Pappé, Jewish loudspeakers could be heard in the city ordering Arab residents to leave "before it's too late."[55] Morris quotes British sources as stating that during the battles between 22 and 23 April 100 Arabs were killed and 100 wounded, but he adds that the total may have been higher.[56]