page_title: Jewish insurgency in Mandatory Palestine
section_title: Resurgence
hierarchical_section_title: Jewish insurgency in Mandatory Palestine / History / Resurgence
caption_attribution_description: Poster published by the Irgun warning of flogging. End of 1946 (?)
context_page_description: The Jewish insurgency in Mandatory Palestine, known in the United Kingdom as the Palestine Emergency, was a paramilitary campaign carried out by Zionist underground groups against British rule in Mandatory Palestine. The tensions between the Zionist underground and the British mandatory authorities rose from 1938 and intensified with the publication of the White Paper of 1939. The Paper outlined new government policies to place further restrictions on Jewish immigration and land purchases, and declared the intention of giving independence to Palestine, with an Arab majority, within ten years. Though World War II brought relative calm, the tensions again escalated into an armed struggle towards the end of the war, when it became clear that the Axis powers were close to defeat.
  The Haganah, the largest of the Jewish underground militias, which was under the control of the officially recognised Jewish leadership of Palestine, remained cooperative with the British. But the Irgun and Lehi, two small, dissident militias of the right-wing Revisionist movement, launched a rebellion against British rule in 1944.
context_section_description: Following Operation Shark, the Mandate was relatively quiet until September, though in August the Palmach sabotaged the British transport ships Empire Rival and Empire Heywood, which was used to deport illegal Jewish immigrants to the Cyprus internment camps. In September, attacks picked up again, starting with two assassinations carried out by Lehi on September 9: British Army intelligence officer Desmond Doran was killed in a grenade attack on his home, and police sergeant T.G. Martin, who had been responsible for Yitzhak Shamir's arrest, was shot dead at a tennis court. In the early morning hours of September 10, a British soldier was killed when Jewish insurgents ambushed army vehicles with automatic fire near Petah Tikva. On September 20, a railway station in Haifa was bombed and a British soldier was shot dead in Tel Aviv two days later. On September 31, a British soldier was killed by automatic fire in an ambush while en route from Lydda to Netanya by motorcycle. In October, Jewish insurgents began using vehicle mines against British vehicles. Eight British soldiers were killed in mine attacks throughout October. Another two were killed and five injured by bombs hidden inside dustbins and a shop shutter detonated as they passed. In addition, a shooting attack against two British airmen in Jerusalem killed one and seriously wounded the other one, and British police officer William Bruce was shot dead in an assassination by the Palmach as vengeance over allegations that he had tortured Palmach prisoners. On October 30, the Irgun raided the Jerusalem railway station. The British had advance knowledge of the plan and a police team opened fire on the raiders, wounding four of them and forcing them to retreat after depositing the explosives. Four of the attackers were later captured including two of the wounded ones. One of them was Meir Feinstein, who was tried and sentenced to death for his role in the action. The interior of station was subsequently badly damaged and a British constable killed when the bombs the raiding party left behind exploded during an attempt to remove them. The following day, Irgun operatives in Italy bombed the British Embassy in Rome, which seriously damaged the building. The Italian authorities subsequently arrested Irgun suspects and discovered an Irgun sabotage school in Rome. One of the Irgun members arrested was Israel Epstein, a childhood friend of Irgun commander Menachem Begin who worked in propaganda and liaison duties for the Irgun high command. He was shot dead while trying to escape custody.
  November saw continued escalation. On November 9, three British policemen were killed after entering a house booby-trapped with explosives after being lured there through a phone call. Two more policemen were killed by bombs two days later. On November 14, widespread attacks with electrically-detonated mines were carried out against the railway system. On the evening of November 17, a 15-cwt police truck hit a mine near Tel Aviv. Three British policemen and a Royal Air Force sergeant were killed, and three other police and RAF personnel in the truck were wounded. In the aftermath of the attack, enraged British troops rampaged through Hayarkon Street in Tel Aviv, causing damage to several cafes and injuring 29 Jews. Within the following two days, a British officer was killed when a mine exploded during a bomb disposal operation on a railway line near Kfar Sirkin and the income tax office in Jerusalem was bombed, killing a Jewish worker. Nine more British soldiers were killed in vehicle mine attacks against military traffic in December, and another two were killed when a vehicle laden with a time bomb detonated in front of the Sarafand base.
  On December 29, the Irgun carried out an operation known as the Night of the Beatings. After three Irgun members were arrested for a December 13 bank robbery carried out to finance the Irgun's activities, a court convicted them and handed down heavy prison sentences. One of the Irgun members, Binyamin Kimchi, was also sentenced to be flogged 18 times in addi
caption: Irgun poster warning the British not to carry out the planned flogging of an Irgun member prior to the Night of the Beatings
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