This photograph, taken by the American Colony Photo Department, captures a mass arms search conducted by Colonial British Mandate forces outside Damascus Gate in Jerusalem on September 9, 1938. The scene is typical of the cordon-and-search operations that the British repeatedly carried out that year as a response to the Great Palestinian Revolt, which had been ongoing since 1936. The military tactic was to surround and isolate an area and sweep the premises for weapons or insurgents, especially at key chokepoints like the gate itself.1
The revolt broke out amid growing Palestinian opposition to British rule and to rising Jewish immigration and land purchases under the British Mandate. It began with a general strike in April 1936 and escalated into an armed insurgency that the British met with curfews, mass arrests, and large-scale search operations.