Jennifer Abdo

“By the end of that day, between 2,000 and 5,000 of Jaffa's original 70,000 inhabitants remained in their homes. All the others were gone. They would never be allowed to return. As had happened at Haifa a month previously, the city's Palestinian population was forced down to the port by the Zionist forces; there they were crammed onto boats, skiffs, and trawlers--and driven out to sea, to make their way to Gaza, el- Arish, even as far away as Beirut, leaving behind everything: homes, furniture, clothing, family papers, heirlooms, photographs, libraries. Much of the city was systematically demolished after the fighting. Its souks and commercial districts were entirely flattened. The famous orange groves surrounding the city were cleared away. All that remained of Jaffa after 1948 was the central district, whose homes were parceled out to new Jewish residents: European Jewish immigrants got the pick of the choicest residences in Jaffa; Sephardim and Mizrahim-Arab Jews-got the rest.”
― Saree Makdisi, Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation