The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine

by Ilan Pappé

The urbicide continued into May with the occupation of Acre on the coast and Baysan in the east on 6 May 1948. In the beginning of May, Acre proved once again that it was not only Napoleon who found it hard to defeat it: despite severe overcrowding due to the huge influx of refugees from the neighbouring city of Haifa, heavy daily shelling by the Jewish forces failed to subdue the Crusader city. However, its exposed water supply ten kilometres to the north, from the Kabri springs, via an almost 200-year old aqueduct, proved its Achilles’ heel. During the siege typhoid germs were apparently injected into the water. Local emissaries of the International Red Cross reported this to their headquarters and left very little room for guessing whom they suspected: the Hagana. The Red Cross reports describe a sudden typhoid epidemic and, even with their guarded language, point to outside poisoning as the sole explanation for this outbreak.