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Today in History: The King David hotel

Today In 1946, the King David Hotel was bombed by the Irgun.

At the end of World War II, the members of the Jewish underground in Mandatory palestine realized that they should unite for combined operations against the British, in light of the great challenges of the hour and the dramatic changes in the world power system. The Haganah, the Irgun (led by Menachem Begin) and the Lehi united under the framework of the ‘Hebrew Meri movement’, and carried out complex actions such as the night of the bridges. The British, in response, carried out mass arrests and raids in June 1946 throughout the Yishuv (such as the Black Sabbath). The Meri movement approved the Irgun to carry out a reprisal operation, and the Irgun chose the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, part of which served as a headquarters for the British, as a target for attack. Under the guise of workers, dozens of kilograms of explosives were placed in the hotel cellars, and the explosive device was detonated at noon on July 22, while destroying much of the hotel. The number of fatalities was particularly large and caused worldwide upheaval (about 100, including at least 15 Jews); the Irgun claimed that a warning had been launched a little earlier, but the Haganah saw the action as a pretext for the dismantling of the Meri movement, and the underground relations deteriorated. The British launched a massive (but relatively unsuccessful) arrest operation, and in the long run the explosion greatly affected their final decision to leave the Land of Israel.

Photo Source: Wikipedia

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