Bernadotte Named U.N. Peace Mediator
May 20, 1948 Count Folke Bernadotte is appointed by the U.N. Security Council as the mediator for Middle East peace efforts five days into the Israeli War of Independence. Bernadotte was born in Sweden in…
Soviet Union Recognizes Israel
May 17, 1948 The Soviet Union officially recognizes the State of Israel three days after Israel declared independence and the United States immediately offered de facto recognition of the new state’s provisional government. The Soviet…
Israel Declares Independence
On Friday afternoon in the Tel Aviv Museum, David Ben-Gurion, chairman of the Provisional State Council, declares Israel’s independence. The United States is the first country to recognize the new and already besieged state of Israel.
Golda Meir Secretly Meets With King Abdullah in Amman
The second secret meeting between the two is a last-ditch effort to persuade Transjordan to stay out of an impending war with the soon-to-be declared State of Israel.
Haganah Seizes Haifa
April 22, 1948 As communal violence increases with the approaching departure of British troops and expected declaration of Israeli independence, the Haganah seizes Haifa, and as many as 25,000 Arabs flee the city, possibly in…
Hadassah Medical Convoy Massacre Takes Place
Arab forces ambush a medical convoy en route to Hadassah Hospital on Mount Scopus, Jerusalem. Seventy-nine people, mostly doctors and nurses are killed in the attack.
Ben-Gurion Outlines 5 Keys to Success in War of Independence
Ben-Gurion feared that there were too many decision-making centers in the Yishuv and that urgency and immediacy demanded one single voice.
Arabs Block Food Convoy to Jerusalem
April 1, 1948 Nine Jews are killed and 17 others are wounded in an unsuccessful attempt to move a 60-truck convoy of food and other supplies to Jerusalem through Wadi Sarrar, even though Haganah patrols…
Davidka Mortar First Used
March 13, 1948 The Davidka, a mortar designed and manufactured at the Mikveh Israel agricultural school for use in Israel’s fight for independence, is used in combat for the first time in an attack on…
Cairo-Haifa Train Bombed
February 29, 1948 Jewish militants from the Lehi underground group mine train cars carrying British troops on the Cairo-Haifa line north of Rehovot. The attack uses one or more bombs placed on the tracks and…
Truck Bombs Kill Dozens on Ben Yehuda Street
February 22, 1948 Arab militants disguised as British troops, joined by a pair of British deserters, detonate bombs in three British military trucks and an armored car in the morning along the shopping district of…
Violence Targets Jews in Arab Cities
The U.N. General Assembly vote the previous day for the partition of Palestine sparks between Jews and Arabs in the British Mandate of Palestine and riots against Jews in Arab cities around the Middle East
U.N. Approves Partition Plan
The United Nations General Assembly passes Resolution 181 by a vote of 33-13 with 10 abstentions. The Resolution recommended the creation of separate Arab and Jewish states in Palestine, linked by an economic union.
Immigrant Ship Kadima Briefly Reaches Haifa
The Aliyah Bet ship Kadima arrives in Haifa under British escort. All of its passengers are arrested and moved to detention camps in Cyprus.
Gromyko Addresses the United Nations
Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko proposes a unitary state for Palestine, but vows to support partition if it is deemed the only workable solution.
Britain Seeks Special U.N. Panel on Palestine
April 2, 1947 The British government notifies the United Nations of its intent to bring the question of Palestine’s future before the next U.N. General Assembly. The United Kingdom also requests a special General Assembly…
Jewish Resistance Blows Up Rails Across Palestine
November 1, 1945 The newly formed Jewish Resistance Movement sets off explosions at more than 150 sites along the railway system of British Mandatory Palestine and blows up three British gunboats in the Jaffa and…
Naharayim Power Plant Opens
March 9, 1932 Pinhas Rutenberg and the Palestine Electric Co. open a hydroelectric power plant at Naharayim. It supplies much of the electricity in Palestine until its destruction by Iraqi troops during the 1948 War…
Ariel Sharon Is Born
Ariel Sharon, Israel’s 11th Prime Minister, is born in K’far Malal (near Hod Hasharon). Born Ariel Scheinerman to political, socialist parents who had come to Eretz Yisrael during the Second Aliyah, Sharon joined the Haganah in 1945, serving in the War of Independence.
Tehiya Founder Geulah Cohen Is Born
December 25, 1925 Politician and activist Geulah Cohen, the founder of the Tehiya party, is born in Tel Aviv. Cohen becomes involved with political movements in Mandatory Palestine when she is young, and she joins…
Gen. Haim Bar-Lev Is Born
November 16, 1924 Haim Bar-Lev, an Israel Defense Forces chief of staff, is born in Vienna, Austria. His family moves to Yugoslavia before settling in Palestine in 1939. He studies at the Mikveh Israel agricultural…
Yitzhak Rabin Is Born
Yitzhak Rabin, Israel’s 5th Prime Minister, is born in Jerusalem to parents who came to Israel during the Third Aliyah. He is the first Israeli Prime Minister to be born in Eretz Yisrael.
Revisionist Zionist Shmuel Katz Is Born
Shmuel Katz, a leader of Revisionist Zionism and a founder of the Herut Party in Israel, is born in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Charles Winters Is Born
Charles Winters, an American who helps Israel acquire fighter planes in 1948, is born in Brookline, Massachusetts.
