This earthquake likely struck Palestine around 6 a.m. on 26 May 1834 CE (give or take a few days), while Jerusalem was being ransacked by rebel forces during the 1834 CE Fellahin Revolt. One eyewitness reported ten days of aftershocks, noting that many houses in Jerusalem were destroyed and that part of the wall of the outer enclosure of the al-Aqsa Mosque crumbled. The tops of several minarets were also said to have fallen. In Bethlehem, reports mention structural damage and casualties, while additional accounts describe damage in Jaffa, Ramla, and Caesarea, and that large quantities of asphalt appeared on the southwestern shores of the Dead Sea after the earthquake.

Zohar et al. (2015) present convincing evidence that one of the minarets damaged in Jerusalem was the al-Nabi Daʾud minaret on Mount Zion. There is also a speculative report of seismic damage at Dhiban, and Ambraseys (2009) records accounts of uncertain reliability suggesting damage in Madaba, Umm al-Rassas, and al-Rahba in modern Jordan. Ambraseys (2009) also notes that “the shock was felt along the Mediterranean coast from Gaza and Ascalon Caesarea to Acre, but not at Tiberias,” while Amiran et al. (1994) report additional damage in Nablus and Tiberias.