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King David Hotel attack in 1946...



Item # 594856

July 22, 1946

THE BETHLEHEM GLOBE-TIMES, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, July 22, 1946

* 1st Major Terrorist Attack
* Jerusalem Israel


The front page has a nice banner headline: "Bombs Kill 50 In Jerusalem Hotel" with subhead: "U.S. Newsman Injured As Terrorists Blast British Headquarters" Early, same day 1st report coverage on the very first major terrorist attack in Jerusalem.

Other news, sports and advertisements of the day. Complete in 20 pages, minor margin wear, otherwise good condition.

wikipedia notes: The King David Hotel bombing (July 22, 1946) was a bomb attack against the British Mandate government of Palestine and its armed forces by members of the Irgun, a militant Zionist organization, which was led at the time by Menachem Begin, a future Prime Minister of Israel.

Members of the Irgun, commanded by Yosef Avni and Yisrael Levi [1] and dressed as Arabs and as the Hotel's distinctive Sudanese waiters, planted a bomb in the basement of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, part of which was being used as the base for the Mandate Secretariat, the British military headquarters and a branch of the police Criminal Investigation Division. 91 people were killed, most of them staff of the secretariat and the hotel: 28 British, 41 Arab, 17 Jewish, and 5 other. Around 45 people were injured.

The attack on the hotel was the deadliest attack against the British in the history of the Mandate and is often credited as being a major factor in the British decision to relinquish the Mandate. If classed as terrorism, the attack was the most deadly one of that kind anywhere until the 1980s, when the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing and the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, which blew up over Lockerbie in Scotland, occurred.

Category: The 20th Century