23.07.2011                      21.Tammus, 5771                      Matot

Geschichte:

This Week in History: The King David Hotel bombing

By bombing J'lem hotel, Irgun believed it could send strong message to British, whom it actively fought to end Mandate, establish Jewish State.

On July 22, 1946, three phone calls were placed to the King David Hotel, an adjacent building and to The Jerusalem Post (then The Palestine Post), warning of an imminent bombing. Minutes later, a blast ripped through the historic hotel and then-headquarters of the British Mandate for Palestine’s civilian and military authorities, killing 91 people and injuring nearly 50.
In 1946, the King David Hotel was the headquarters of the British Mandate government, housing much of its intelligence apparatus and top military, intelligence and civilian officials. Several weeks earlier, British authorities had raided the Jewish Agency in Jerusalem and seized a massive amount of secret documents containing sensitive information about Jewish resistance fighters and operations. The documents were believed to have been brought to the British intelligence offices at the hotel for analysis….