The British administrative headquarters for Mandatory Palestine, housed in the southern wing[1] of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, were bombed in a terrorist attack[2][3] on 22 July 1946, by the militant right-wing[4] Zionist underground organization Irgun during the Jewish insurgency.

[8][9] When planned, the attack had the approval of the Haganah, the principal Jewish paramilitary group in Palestine, though, unbeknownst to the Irgun, this had been cancelled by the time the operation was carried out.

The main motive of the bombing was to destroy documents incriminating the Jewish Agency in attacks against the British, which were obtained during Operation Agatha, a series of raids by mandate authorities.

[8] In March 1946, British Labour Party Member of Parliament (MP) Richard Crossman described activity at the hotel: "Private detectives, Zionist agents, Arab sheiks, special correspondents, and the rest, all sitting around about discreetly overhearing each other.

[15] On 1 July 1946, Moshe Sneh, chief of the Haganah General Headquarters, sent a letter to the then leader of the Irgun, Menachem Begin, which instructed him to "carry out the operation at the 'chick'", code for the King David Hotel.

[note 1] Despite this approval for the project, repeated delays in executing the operation were requested by the Haganah, in response to changes unfolding in the political situation.

[9] In the plan, Irgun men, disguised as Arabs, except for Gideon, the leader, who would be dressed as one of the hotel's distinctive Sudanese waiters, would enter the building through a basement service entrance carrying the explosives concealed in milk cans.

[9] In the final review of the plan, it was decided that the attack would take place on 22 July at 11:00, a time when there would be no people in the coffee shop in the basement in the area where the bomb was to be planted.

[18] The British government said, five months after the bombing, once the subsequent inquest and all inquiries had been completed, that no such warnings had been received by anyone at the Secretariat "in an official position with any power to take action".

[19] (see Sir John Shaw controversy) American author Thurston Clarke's analysis of the bombing gave timings for calls and for the explosion, which he said took place at 12:37.

[18] After placing the bombs in the La Regence Cafe,[21] the Irgun men quickly slipped out and detonated a small explosive in the street outside the hotel, reportedly to keep passers-by away from the area.

In one Irgun account of the bombing, by Katz, the two were shot during the initial approach to the hotel, when a minor gunfight ensued with two British soldiers who had become suspicious.

The Manchester Guardian argued that "British firmness" inside Palestine had brought about more terrorism and worsened the situation in the country, the opposite effect that the government had intended.

[24] Chief Secretary for the Government of Palestine, Sir John Shaw, noted that the majority of the dead had been members of his own personal staff: "British, Arabs, Jews, Greeks, Armenians; senior officers, police, my orderly, my chauffeur, messengers, guards, men and women—young and old—they were my friends.

It appears that after exploding a small bomb in the street, presumably as a diversionary measure—this did virtually no damage—a lorry drove up to the tradesmen's entrance of the King David Hotel and the occupants, after holding up the staff at pistol point, entered the kitchen premises carrying a number of milk cans.

[26] Within a few minutes of the bombing, Barker translated this instruction into an order that "all Jewish places of entertainment, cafes, restaurants, shops and private dwellings" be out of bounds to all ranks.

He concluded: "I appreciate that these measures will inflict some hardship on the troops, but I am certain that if my reasons are fully explained to them, they will understand their propriety and they will be punishing the Jews in a way the race dislikes as much as any, by striking at their pockets and showing our contempt of them."

[31] The Irgun issued an initial statement accepting responsibility for the attack, mourning their Jewish victims, and calling into fault the British for what they saw as a failure to respond to the warnings.

[29] A year later, on 22 July 1947, they issued a new statement saying that they were acting on instructions from "a letter from the headquarters of the United Resistance, demanding that we carry out an attack on the center of government at the King David Hotel as soon as possible".

[13] Richard Crossman, a British Labour Party Member of Parliament (MP), whose experience on the Anglo-American Committee had made him sympathetic to Zionism, visited Chaim Weizmann shortly after the attack.

[9] In an interview with Bethell,[8] Galili said his source for the Shaw story had been Boris Guriel, the future head of Israel's intelligence service, who had heard it in turn from the American Associated Press bureau chief Carter Davidson.

[9] Also in 1948, William Ziff, an American author, released a revised edition of his 1938 book The Rape of Palestine which contained an embellished version of Galili's story, similar to the one given in the Black Paper pamphlet.

After lawyers in Israel failed to find evidence supporting Ziff's version of events, the book's publishers withdrew it from circulation and apologised to Shaw.

[8] The Revolt, Menachem Begin's book on the Irgun, which was published in Britain in 1951, made references to a "high official" having received a warning but refusing to evacuate the hotel in time.

The decision not to do it had been made because "everyone was under orders to preserve the semblance of normality in Palestine", "social life had to be allowed to continue" and because nobody had believed that the Irgun would put the whole of the Secretariat, which had many Jewish employees, in danger.

The actions further eroded British public support for the Mandate system[34] and alienated the Jewish populace, aligning with Begin's original intent.

[37] Security analyst Bruce Hoffman wrote of the bombing in his 1999 book Inside Terrorism: "Unlike many terrorist groups today, the Irgun's strategy was not deliberately to target or wantonly harm civilians.

At the same time, though, the claim of Begin and other apologists that warnings were issued cannot absolve either the group or its commander for the ninety-one people killed and forty-five others injured ...

[35] Various British government papers relating to the bombing were released under the thirty year rule in 1978, including the results of the military and police investigations.

The death toll given includes Avraham Abramovitz, the Irgun member who was shot during the attack and died later from his wounds, but only the Hebrew version of the sign makes that clear.