The following is a partial list of
Lehi operations. Lehi split from the
Irgun in August 1940, and dissolved in late 1948.
Operations by year
1942
May 1 – Attempt on Assistant Superintendent
Geoffrey J. Morton, head of the
CID in Tel Aviv and Jaffa and the policeman who killed
Avraham Stern, with a huge
improvised explosive device containing sixty sticks of
gelignite which was hidden in a roadside ditch. It was detonated as a car containing Morton, his wife (who worked in
Jaffa as a teacher) and bodyguards passed an orange grove close to their home. Because the car had moved out to overtake a bicycle they were not caught by the full force of the blast and although their car was wrecked the occupants escaped with concussion.[1][2][3]
March 19 – A Lehi member was shot dead while resisting arrest by the CID in Tel Aviv. Lehi retaliated with an attack in Tel Aviv that killed two police officers and wounded one.[5][6]
March 23 – Lehi attack in Jerusalem kills a police officer and wounds another.
August 8 – Attempt on
Harold MacMichael,
high commissioner for Palestine and Transjordan. Both he and his wife narrowly escaped death in an ambush that Lehi had mounted on the eve of his replacement as high commissioner. During his tenure, MacMichael was the target of seven unsuccessful assassination attempts, mainly by the Lehi. This was the last one.[7]
September 29 – Assassination of CID officer Thomas James Wilkin. Wilkin was the Commander of the Jewish Division and right-hand man of
Geoffrey J. Morton (see
Shoshana Borochov).[8]
November 6 –
Lord Moyne, British Deputy Resident Minister of State in
Cairo was assassinated by Lehi members
Eliyahu Hakim and
Eliyahu Bet-Zuri; this operation triggers
The Hunting Season. Moyne's driver was also killed. Hakim and Bet-Zuri were executed for the murders.
February 26 – Irgun and Lehi fighters attacked three British airfields and destroyed dozens of aircraft. One Irgun fighter was killed.[10]
April 25 – Lehi fighters attacked a Tel Aviv car park that was being used by the British Army's
6th Airborne Division, killing seven British soldiers and looting the arms racks they found. They then laid mines and retreated.[11]
June 17 –
Lehi attacked railroad workshops in
Haifa. Eleven Lehi members were killed during the attack.[12]
September 9 – Two British officers were killed by an explosion at a public building in
Tel Aviv.[13] A British police sergeant, T.G. Martin, who had identified and arrested Lehi leader and future Israeli Prime Minister
Yitzhak Shamir, was assassinated near his Haifa home.[14]
1947
In 1947, several
letter bombs were sent to President
Harry Truman in the White House. They were intercepted by White House mail room workers, who were on alert because of similar looking letter bombs sent to British officials.[9][15] Former Lehi leader
Nathan Yellin-Mor admitted that letter bombs had been sent to British targets but denied that any had been sent to Truman.[16]
April 23 - Lehi mines a train outside
Rehovot. The bombing kills five British officers, two Arab adults and a 3-year old, Gilbert Balladi.[17]
April 25 – Lehi bombed a British police compound, killing five policemen.[13]
May 4 –
Acre Prison break – Irgun members working with Jewish prisoners inside
Acre Prison managed to blow a hole in the wall, and assault the prison, freeing 28 Jewish prisoners. Nine Irgun and Lehi fighters, including commander Dov Cohen, were killed during the retreat.[18] Five Irgun fighters and eight escapees were later captured.
May 15 – Two British soldiers were killed and seven injured by Lehi. A British policeman was also killed in an ambush.
June 4 – Eight Lehi
letter bombs addressed to high British government officials, including Prime Minister
Clement Attlee, were discovered in
London.[13] A British soldier was killed in Haifa.[19]
June 28 – Lehi fighters opened fire on a line of British soldiers waiting in line outside a Tel Aviv theater, killing three soldiers and wounding two. One Briton was also killed and several wounded in a Haifa hotel. A Jewish fighter was also wounded.
June 29 – Four British soldiers were wounded in a Lehi attack at a
Herzliya beach.[13]
September 3 – A postal bomb sent by either Irgun or Lehi exploded in the post office sorting room of the British War Office in London, injuring two.[20]
September 26 – Irgun fighters robbed a bank, killing four British policemen.[21]
November 13 – Lehi grenade attack on British soldiers in cafe leaves 1 dead and 27 wounded.
December 25 – Lehi members machine-gun two British soldiers in a Tel Aviv cafe.[13]
1948
January 4 – Lehi detonates a truck bomb against the headquarters of the paramilitary
al-Najjada located in
Jaffa's Town Hall, killing 15 Arabs and injuring 80.[13][22]
March 3 – Car bombing in
Haifa killed 11 Arabs[23]
April 9–11 – About 110 Arabs
massacred (the estimate generally accepted by scholars, instead of the first announced number of 254) during and after the battle at the village of
Deir Yassin near
Jerusalem, by 132
Irgun and 60
Lehi fighters.[24][25][26][27][28]
May 3 – A Lehi book bomb posted to the parental home of British Major
Roy Farran was opened by his brother Rex, killing him. Roy Farran was court-martialed on a charge of murdering an unarmed 16-year-old member of
Lehi during his command of an undercover
Palestine Police unit.[29]
^Yoav Gelber, 'Palestine 1948', p. 20; The Scotsman newspaper, 6th January 1948; Walid Khalidi states that 25 civilians were killed, in addition to the military targets. 'Before Their Diaspora', 1984. p. 316, picture p. 325; Benny Morris, 'The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947-1949', Cambridge University Press, p. 46.
^Bose, Sumantra (2007). Contested Land. Harvard University Press. pp. 230–231.
ISBN9780674028562.
^Kana'ana, Sharif and Zeitawi, Nihad (1987), "The Village of Deir Yassin", Bir Zeit, Bir Zeit University Press
^Morris, 2004,: Chapter 4: The second wave: the mass exodus, April—June 1948, Section: Operation Nahshon, p.
238
^Milstein, Uri (1998) [1987]. Alan Sacks (ed.). History of the War of Independence IV: Out of Crisis Came Decision (in Hebrew and English). Translated by Alan Sacks. Lanhan, Maryland: University Press of America, Inc.
ISBN0-7618-1489-2.: Chapter 16: Deir Yassin, Section 12: The Massacre, page 376-381