Operation Cast Thy Bread

Operation Cast Thy Bread was an operation carried out by the Zionist militia the Haganah in 1948 to contaminate water resources used by Arab towns and villages with Typhoid bacteria. This was an attempt to cause panic amongst Palestinians and prevent them from returning to their captured homes.

In her book Towers of Ivory and Steel: How Israeli Universities Deny Palestinian Freedom Maya Wind writes that “As part of the Haganah campaigns to depopulate major Palestinian cities in the weeks leading up to the 1948 war, typhoid-dysentery was used to poison Palestinian communities where they were still living. In early May, the Haganah poisoned water sources in Palestinian neighbourhoods in Jerusalem and the Kabri aqueduct that fed Acre.”

This fits in with a report in the Derry Journal on the 9th May 1948 which says “A serious outbreak of typhoid is reported among refugees near Jerusalem. Arab physicians say that out breaks of cholera and typhus are imminent among 100,000 Arab homeless.”

One day earlier the Belfast Newsletter reported “The typhoid epidemic in Acre across the bay from Haifa, had spread to surrounding Arab villages, an International Red Cross representative said yesterday. Fifty-two British troops, seven British police and at least 70 civilians were listed as victims, he added” In both the above reports the 

Later that month on the 27th May the Daily Herald reported “An Egyptian Communique last night said that two Zionists arrested near the Egyptian Army camp at Gaza had confessed to throwing typhoid and dysentery germs into the Egyptian troops’ water supply under orders from the commander of a Jewish settlement. 

A water flask used for the purpose was found on one of the meanwhile the other confessed he threw a bottle of microbes in the the well.”

In August 1948 The Western Morning News says that “The Zionist attitude towards these unhappy people is one of almost incredible callousness….the original idea of a mixed State has given place to one of a purely Jewish community to which a few Arabs may be allowed in on sufferance”

“News of typhoid among the Arab refugees has followed quickly the expert warning. It underlines the tragedy of the situation. Even if we accept the very conservative estimate which Sir Alex Cadogan placed before the Security Council, that the displaced Palestinian Arabs amounted to a quarter of a million, the figure would be appreciably in excess of that of displaced Jews in Europe. There is a striking disproportion between the amount of publicly-expressed sympathy for the one and the other.”