The 1948 Arab–Israeli War, also known as the First Arab–Israeli War, followed the civil war in Mandatory Palestine as the second and final stage of the 1948 Palestine war. The civil war became a war of separate states with the Israeli Declaration of Independence on 14 May 1948, the end of the British Mandate for Palestine at midnight, and the entry of a military coalition of Arab states into the territory of Mandatory Palestine the following morning. The war formally ended with the 1949 Armistice Agreements which established the Green Line.
Haifa is the third-largest city in Israel—after Jerusalem and Tel Aviv—with a population of 290,306 in 2022. The city of Haifa forms part of the Haifa metropolitan area, the third-most populous metropolitan area in Israel. It is home to the Baháʼí Faith's Baháʼí World Centre, and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a destination for Baháʼí pilgrimage.
The Battle of Haifa, also known as the Fall of Haifa, and called by the Jewish forces Operation Bi'ur Hametz, was a Haganah operation carried out on 21–22 April 1948 and a major event in the final stages of the civil war in Palestine, leading up to the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. The objective of the operation was the capture of the Arab neighborhoods of Haifa. The operation formed part of the 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight, with approximately 15,000 Arab residents being displaced between April 21–22, and with only 4,000 remaining in the city by mid-May from a pre-conflict population of approximately 65,000.
Pinhas Rutenberg was a Russian businessman, hydraulic engineer and political activist. In Russia He was a member of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, and fled due to the Bolshevik revolution. During World War I, he was among the founders of the Jewish Legion and of the American Jewish Congress. Later, he immigrated to Mandatory Palestine, and used his education and diplomacy to obtain a concession for production and distribution of electric power and founded the Palestine Electric Corporation in 1923, currently the Israel Electric Corporation. A vocal and committed Zionist, Rutenberg also participated in establishing the Haganah, the main Jewish militia to defend Jews from Arab attacks, and founded Palestine Airways. He subsequently served as a president of the Jewish National Council.
Israel Electric Corporation is the largest supplier of electrical power in Israel and the Palestinian territories. The IEC builds, maintains, and operates power generation stations, sub-stations, as well as transmission and distribution networks in Israel.
Reading Power Station is a natural gas fueled thermal power station supplying electrical power to the Tel Aviv District in central Israel. It is in the northwestern part of the city at the mouth of the Yarkon River.
Yoav Gelber is a professor of history at the University of Haifa, and was formerly a visiting professor at the University of Texas at Austin.
Operation Hametz was a Zionist operation towards the end of Mandatory Palestine, as part of the 1948 Palestine war. It was launched at the end of April 1948 with the objective of capturing villages inland from Jaffa and establishing a blockade around the town. The operation, which led to the first direct battle between the British and the Irgun, was seen as a great victory for the latter, and enabled the Irgun to take credit for the complete conquest of Jaffa that happened on May 13.
Naharayim, historically the Jisr Majami area, is the area where the Yarmouk River flows into the Jordan River. It was the site of the "First Jordan Hydro-Electric Power House", constructed between 1927–33, and located near an ancient Roman bridge known as Jisr Majami. The site was named by the Palestine Electric Company which assigned "proper names" to the "different quarters of our Jordan Works", one of these being the "works as a whole including the labour camp" to be called "Naharaim", and another being the site of the "Power House and the adjoining staff quarters, offices" to be called "Tel Or". Most of the plant was situated in the Emirate of Transjordan and stretched from the northern canal near Kibbutz Ashdot Ya'akov in northern Mandatory Palestine to the Jisr el-Majami in the south.
Abu Shusha was a Palestinian Arab village in the Haifa Subdistrict. It was depopulated during the 1947–48 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine on 9 April 1948 during the Battle of Mishmar HaEmek. The village was inhabited by Turkmens.
Abu Kabir was a satellite village of Jaffa founded by Egypt following Ibrahim Pasha's 1832 defeat of Turkish forces in Ottoman era Palestine. During the 1948 Palestine war, it was mostly abandoned and later destroyed. After Israel's establishment in 1948, the area became part of south Tel Aviv. Officially part of Giv'at Herzl, the adjacent Jewish neighborhood, the name Abu Kabir continued to be used. Part or all of Abu Kabir was officially renamed Tabitha by the Tel Aviv municipality in 2011.
The Cement Incident took place in the port of Jaffa in Palestine on 16 October 1935. While Arab dockers were unloading a consignment of 537 drums of White-Star cement from the Belgian cargo ship Leopold II, which were destined for a Jewish merchant called J. Katan in Tel Aviv, one drum accidentally broke open spilling out guns and ammunition. Further investigation by British Mandate officials revealed a large cache of smuggled weapons, comprising 25 machine guns, 800 rifles and 400,000 rounds of ammunition contained in 359 of the 537 drums, but because the merchant was not identified and the final destination was not uncovered, no arrests were made.
Events in the year 1947 in the British Mandate of Palestine.
Events in the year 1942 in the British Mandate of Palestine.
Events in the year 1935 in the British Mandate of Palestine.
Jaffa, also called Japho, Joppa or Joppe in English, is an ancient Levantine port city which is part of Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel, located in its southern part. The city sits atop a naturally elevated outcrop on the Mediterranean coastline.
Harry Sacher was a British businessman, journalist, and Zionist leader. He was appointed director of Marks & Spencer in 1932.
Mandatory Palestine was a geopolitical entity that existed between 1920 and 1948 in the region of Palestine under the terms of the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine.
Palestine Airways was an airline founded by Zionist Pinhas Rutenberg in British Palestine, in conjunction with the Histadrut and the Jewish Agency. In 1937 the airline was taken over by British Government's Air Ministry, with the intention of it eventually being transferred back into private hands.
The First Jordan Hydro-Electric Power House, also known as the Rutenberg Power Station or the Naharayim Power Plant or the Tel Or Power Plant, was a conventional dammed hydroelectric power station on the Jordan river, which operated between 1932 and 1948. It was situated in the Emirate of Transjordan, but built to supply power to Mandatory Palestine. The plant was built in an area known as Jisr el-Majami, later renamed by Pinhas Rutenberg's Palestine Electric Corporation as Naharayim, and following the Israel–Jordan peace treaty it is today part of the Jordanian area of Baqoura.
