On 22 Ju ly 1946, a massive explosion ripped through the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, headquarters of the British administration in Palestine. It killed 91 people in the latest and most shocking attack to be mounted by a deadly group of Jewish terrorists as they fought to drive the British out of Palestine and establish a homeland of their own – Israel.
Disguised as Arabs, 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 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.