King David Hotel Bombing

King David Hotel Bombing
Part of the Jewish insurgency in Palestine
The hotel after the bombing
Location	Jerusalem, Mandatory Palestine
Date	July 22, 1946 12:37 pm (UTC+2)
Target	King David Hotel
Attack type	Bombing
Deaths	91
Non-fatal injuries	46
Perpetrators	Irgun

The King David Hotel bombing was a terrorist attack carried out on Monday, July 22, 1946, by the militant right-wingZionist underground organization, the Irgun, on the British administrative headquarters for Palestine, which was housed in the southern wing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem. 91 people of various nationalities were killed and 46 injured.

The hotel was the site of the central offices of the British Mandatory authorities of Palestine, principally the Secretariat of the Government of Palestine and the Headquarters of the British Armed Forces in Palestine and Transjordan. 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. It was conceived as part of a response to Operation Agatha (a series of widespread raids, including one on the Jewish Agency, conducted by the British authorities) and was the deadliest directed at the British during the Mandate era (1920–1948).

Disguised as Arab workmen and as hotel waiters, members of the Irgun planted a bomb in the basement of the main building of the hotel, whose southern wing housed the Mandate Secretariat and a few offices of the British military headquarters. The resulting explosion caused the collapse of the western half of the southern wing of the hotel. Some of the inflicted deaths and injuries occurred in the road outside the hotel and in adjacent buildings.

The Irgun sent warnings by telephone, including one to the hotel's own switchboard, which, possibly because hoax bomb warnings were rife at the time, the staff decided to ignore, but none directly to the British authorities. From the fact that a bomb search had already been carried out, it appears that a hoax call or tip-off had been received at the hotel earlier that day. Subsequent telephone calls from a concerned Palestine Post staff member and the police caused increasing alarm, and the hotel manager was notified. In the closing minutes before the explosion, he called an unknown British officer, but no evacuation was ordered. Controversy has arisen over the timing and adequacy of the warnings and, based on the not necessarily true assumption that the number of people in the blast zone would have been reduced, the reasons why the hotel was not evacuated.