1929 Palestine Riots - Aftermath

Aftermath

The riots produced a large number of trials. According to the Attorney-General of Palestine, Norman Bentwich, the following numbers of persons were charged, with the numbers convicted in parentheses.

	Murder	Attempted murder	Looting/arson	Lesser offences
Arabs	124 (55)	50 (17)	250 (150)	294 (219)
Jews	70 (2)	39 (1)	31 (7)	21 (9)

Of those convicted of murder, 26 Arabs and 2 Jews were sentenced to death. The Arabs included 14 convicted for the massacre in Safed and 11 for the massacre in Hebron. The Jewish policeman Simchas Hinkis was convicted for the murder of five and wounding of two when a mob broke into a house between Tel Aviv and Jaffa to avenge the murder of six Jews. Joseph Urphali was convicted by two separate trials, and lost his appeal twice, for the shooting of two Arabs from the roof of his Jaffa house.

Some of the Arab convictions were overturned on appeal and all the remaining death sentences were commuted to terms of imprisonment by the High Commissioner except in the case of three Arabs. Atta Ahmed el Zeer, Mohamamed Khalil Abu Jamjum and Fuad Hassab el Hejazi were hanged on 17 June 1930.

Collective fines were imposed on the Arabs of Hebron, Safed, and some villages. The fine on Hebron was 14,000 pounds. The fines collected, and an additional one hundred thousand pounds, were distributed to the victims, 90 percent of them Jews.

A few dozen families returned to Hebron in 1931 to reestablish the community, but all but one family were evacuated from Hebron at the outset of the 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine. The last family left in 1947.

The Arabs in the region, led by the Palestine Arab Congress, imposed a boycott on Jewish-owned businesses following the riots.