In 1628, the Druze seized the city and, holding it for several years, despoiled the local community, and the Jewish population declined as Safed Jews moved to Hebron and Jerusalem.

[17] A year later, in 1834, it was announced that new taxation laws would be imposed, and conscription was introduced, drafting fellahin into the Egyptian army, who were also disarmed by local notables.

The Druze of the Galilee themselves, profiting from a weakness of control over their area, rose in revolt in the spring[7] and were joined by a mass uprising by the fellahin, who resented local Jewish collaboration with the Egyptians.

[19][20] Safed had been severely damaged by the 1834 Jerusalem earthquake in May of that year, and following the uprising, attacks broke out on the weaker members of Palestinian towns, namely the Jews and Christians.

[21][22] It was in this setting that the plunder at Safed was unleashed, causing many Jews to seek refuge among friendly Arabs in the neighbouring town of Ein Zeitim.

[23] One account, retold by several Safed Jews to the 25-year-old Alexander William Kinglake, who visited in 1835,[24] blamed the incident on the intolerant rantings of a local Muslim cleric named Muhammad Damoor.

The account stated that at the beginning of 1834, Damoor publicly prophesied that on June 15, the "true believers would rise up in just wrath against the Jews, and despoil them of their gold and their silver and their jewels.

[26] The 1850 account of Rabbi Joseph Schwartz stated that "Everything was carried off which could possibly be removed, even articles of no value; boxes, chests, packages, without even opening them, were dragged away; and the fury with which this crowd attacked their defenceless victims was boundless... [The perpetrators] were perfectly safe and unmolested; for they had learned that Abraim Pacha was, at the moment, so much occupied at Jerusalem and vicinity with his enemies there, that he could not go into Galilee.

Kinglake only mentions the occurrence of looting, writing that "the most odious of all outrages, that of searching the women for the base purpose of discovering such things as gold and silver concealed about their persons, was perpetrated without shame.

[27][better source needed] 12 year-old Jacob Saphir was among refugees who found sanctuary in the adjacent village of Ein al-Zeitun, assisted by a sympathetic Arab sheikh.

"[28] Menachem Mendel Baum, a prominent member of the Ashkenazi community, published a book (Korot ha-ʻitim li-yeshurun be-Erets Yisrael, 1839) vividly detailing his recollections.

His article, based on similar first-hand accounts, tells of how the head of the community, Israel of Shklov, was threatened with his life and another rabbi who had fled to the hills seeking refuge in a cave was set upon and had his eye gouged out.

[33] Among the distinguished men who gave their lives helping others were Rabbis Leib Cohen, Shalom Hayat and Mendel of Kamnitz, who wandered around the streets without fear of the attackers to return little children to their mothers, rescuing the victims physically and emotionally, and burying the dead.

[30][34] Rabbi Joseph Schwartz noted the justice that once calm had been restored, Ibrahim Pasha's army arrested and executed a number of perpetrators, and enforced summary justice on many suspects to ensure stolen goods were returned: The most respectable Mahomedans of Zafed and its environs were arrested as the authors of the outrage, and some of them were afterwards publicly executed, and whatever could be found of the stolen property of the Jews was restored.

Their complaints encouraged Ibrahim Pasha to send his Lebanese Maronite Christian ally Bashir Shihab II, the Emir of Mount Lebanon, to restore order.