The Tulkarem Railway: Palestine's Wartime Lifeline

In 1942, as Rommel's Afrika Korps pushed toward Egypt, the British Mandate authorities secretly extended the Hejaz Railway from Tulkarem to Haifa, a strategic line that would reshape Palestine's northern landscape. This episode follows the railway's construction, the fellahin laborers who built it under forced conditions, and the uneasy alliance between the Jewish Agency and the British war effort. We trace the line's role in the Allied supply chain, the tensions it inflamed among Arab and Jewish communities, and the quiet transformation of Tulkarem from a market town into a critical transport hub. Through the lens of a single railway, we see the converging pressures of World War II, Zionist land purchases, and Palestinian displacement — a microcosm of the larger struggle. Lucas and Luna also reflect on how the railway's legacy endures in the physical scars and political boundaries of today's West Bank, and what it means to read a landscape as a historical document.

#TulkaremRailway #HejazRailway #Palestine1942 #WorldWarII #BritishMandate #Fellahin #JewishAgency #Rommel #Haifa #WestBank #MandatePalestine #RailwayHistory #LandDispossession #MiddleEastHistory #PalestineHistory #FexingoHistory #History #WarLogistics

Keep every episode free: buymeacoffee.com/fexingo