The 1917 Jaffa Expulsion: Ottoman Wartime Atrocity

In the spring of 1917, as British forces approached southern Palestine, the Ottoman authorities ordered the mass evacuation of Jaffa's civilian population. Over the course of several days, some 30,000 residents—Muslims, Christians, and Jews alike—were forced from their homes at bayonet point and marched north toward Nablus and the Galilee. The expulsion, ordered by Jamal Pasha and his German advisors, was officially justified as a military necessity to clear the coastal area for defense. But for the people of Jaffa, it meant the loss of homes, businesses, and livelihoods—many never returned. This episode explores the mechanics of the evacuation, the suffering along the dusty roads, the role of the American Colony relief efforts, and the legal aftermath after the British occupation. We trace the stories of specific families, the destruction of the citrus groves that had been Jaffa's pride, and the fate of the city's emptied neighborhoods. Drawing on Ottoman military records, British intelligence reports, and eyewitness diaries from the American Colony archive in Jerusalem, we reconstruct a brutal chapter that foreshadowed the demographic upheavals of later decades.

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