On this day in 1946, the King David Hotel was blown up by the Irgun.
With the end of the Second World War, the people of the pre-State of Israel fighting units in the Land of Israel realized that they should unite for combined operations against the British, in view of the great challenges of the hour and the dramatic changes in the world power system. The Haganah, the Etzel (aka the Irgun) led by Menachem Begin and the Lehi united under the framework of the Jewish Resistence Movement, and carried out complex operations against the British such as the Night of the Bridges. The British, in response, in June, 1948, carried out arrests and raids on a massive scale all over the settlement known as “Black Sabbath.”
The Jewish Resistence Movement authorized the Irgun to carry out a retaliatory operation, and the Irgun chose the King David Hotel as the target for the attack. The southern wing of the hotel served as office headquarters for the British in which they held incriminating documents about the three movements. Under the guise of workers, tens of kilograms of explosives were planted in the basement of the hotel, and the charge detonated in the afternoon of July 22, destroying a large part of the hotel. The number of dead was particularly large and caused echoes around the world. 91 people were killed, including at 17 Jews who were working in the British offices.
The Irgun issued a warning to the hotel and nearby French consulate before detonating the explosives, however the warning was not heeded by the hotel which was not evacuated. The Jewish Resistence Movment saw the large number of deaths in the attack as a reason to disband, and the relations between the three underground movements continued to deteriorate. The British launched a huge but relatively unsuccessful arrest operation following the attack.
In the long run, the explosion greatly influenced the British’s final decision to leave the Land of Israel.
