Lehi bombing of Haifa police station

Lehi bombing of Haifa police station
Lehi bombing of Haifa police station
Part of Jewish insurgency in Mandatory Palestine
Location	Haifa police station, Haifa, Mandatory Palestine
Date	January 12, 1947
Deaths	4 killed
Injured	142 injured
Perpetrator	Lehi

On January 12, 1947, the Lehi, a Zionist paramilitary group, bombed the British police station in Haifa, Mandatory Palestine with a truck laden with explosives.^[1]^: 299^[2]^[3] It has been described as the first car bombing in history.^[4] The attack killed 4 and injured 142, and it ended a truce in Mandatory Palestine.^[2]

History

The attack occurred during the Jewish insurgency in Mandatory Palestine.

References

^ DiPrizio, Robert C., ed. (2020). Conflict in the Holy Land: from ancient times to the Arab-Israeli conflicts. Santa Barbara, California Denver, Colorado: ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-1-4408-6747-7.
^ ^a ^b "HAIFA BLAST ENDS PALESTINE TRUCE; KILLS 4, INJURES 142; Explosive-Laden Truck, Parked by Terrorists, Wrecks Police Station and Rocks City". The New York Times. Retrieved 2023-12-17.
^ "Outrage Stuns Country". The New York Times. Retrieved 2023-12-17.
^ Davis, Mike (2011-06-02), "The First Car Bomb", Transforming Terror, University of California Press, pp. 32–33, doi:10.1525/9780520949454-011, ISBN 978-0-520-94945-4, retrieved 2023-12-17, Despite some improvisations (mostly failed) in the 1920s and 1930s, the car bomb was not fully conceptualized as a weapon of urban war-fare until January 12, 1947, when rightwing Zionist guerrillas, the Stern Gang, drove a truckload of explosives into a British police station in Haifa, Palestine, killing 4 and injuring 140. The Stern Gang, soon joined by the paramilitaries of the Irgun from whom they had split back in 1940, would subsequently use truck and car bombs to kill Palestinians as well: a creative atrocity that was immediately reciprocated by British deserters fi ghting on the Arab side. (Fifty years later, jihadis training in Al Qaeda camps in Af ghan i stan would study Menachem Begin's Revolt,a memoir of the Irgun, as a classic handbook of successful terrorism.)

[1] DiPrizio, Robert C., ed. (2020). Conflict in the Holy Land: from ancient times to the Arab-Israeli conflicts. Santa Barbara, California Denver, Colorado: ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-1-4408-6747-7.

[:0-2] "HAIFA BLAST ENDS PALESTINE TRUCE; KILLS 4, INJURES 142; Explosive-Laden Truck, Parked by Terrorists, Wrecks Police Station and Rocks City". The New York Times. Retrieved 2023-12-17.

[3] "Outrage Stuns Country". The New York Times. Retrieved 2023-12-17.

[4] Davis, Mike (2011-06-02), "The First Car Bomb", Transforming Terror, University of California Press, pp. 32–33, doi:10.1525/9780520949454-011, ISBN 978-0-520-94945-4, retrieved 2023-12-17, Despite some improvisations (mostly failed) in the 1920s and 1930s, the car bomb was not fully conceptualized as a weapon of urban war-fare until January 12, 1947, when rightwing Zionist guerrillas, the Stern Gang, drove a truckload of explosives into a British police station in Haifa, Palestine, killing 4 and injuring 140. The Stern Gang, soon joined by the paramilitaries of the Irgun from whom they had split back in 1940, would subsequently use truck and car bombs to kill Palestinians as well: a creative atrocity that was immediately reciprocated by British deserters fi ghting on the Arab side. (Fifty years later, jihadis training in Al Qaeda camps in Af ghan i stan would study Menachem Begin's Revolt,a memoir of the Irgun, as a classic handbook of successful terrorism.)

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