King David Hotel was founded when?
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The King David Hotel ( , ) is a 5-star hotel in Jerusalem and a member of The Leading Hotels of the World. Opened in 1931, the hotel was built with locally quarried pink limestone and was founded by Ezra Mosseri, a wealthy Egyptian Jewish banker. It is located on King David Street in the centre of Jerusalem, overlooking the Old City and Mount Zion.
King David Hotel
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On May 4, 1948, when the British flag was lowered as the British Mandate ended, the building became a Jewish stronghold. At the end of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, the hotel found itself overlooking "no-man’s land" on the armistice line that divided Jerusalem into Israeli and Jordanian territory. The hotel was purchased by the Dan Hotels chain in 1958. Multiple scenes in the 1960 film "Exodus" were shot at the hotel, both outside and inside, in the main lobby and on the terrace. When East Jerusalem was annexed by Israel following the 1967 Six-Day War, the hotel was expanded, with two additional floors.
King David Hotel
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From its earliest days, the King David Hotel hosted royalty: the dowager empress of Persia, queen mother Nazli of Egypt, and King Abdullah I of Jordan stayed at the hotel, and three heads of state forced to flee their countries took up residence there: King Alfonso XIII of Spain, forced to abdicate in 1931, Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia, driven out by the Italians in 1936, and King George II of Greece, who set up his government in exile at the hotel after the Nazi occupation of his country in 1942. During the British Mandate, the southern wing of the hotel was turned into a British administrative and military headquarters.
On July 22, 1946, the southwestern corner of the hotel was bombed during an attack led by the Zionist paramilitary group Irgun. 91 people died and 45 people were injured. An earlier attempt by the Irgun to attack the hotel had been foiled when the Haganah learned of it, and warned the British authorities.
King David Hotel
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To help pay for his college fees Bitar worked as a clerk at the Chief Secretary's office in Jerusalem. The British had chosen the King David Hotel as their headquarters in a secure zone, thus requiring a pass to enter. On July 22, 1946, the King David Hotel was bombed by members of Irgun — a terrorist Zionist organization. Adi was in the building when the bomb exploded and was saved only because his elder brother Bahij; who also worked there, insisted that Adi was buried alive under the rubble. It took two hours to reach him and he was found alive with two broken arms and two broken ribs and with many bruises all over his face and body. It took several weeks for his injuries to heal.
Adi Bitar
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The King David Hotel bombing was a terrorist attack carried out on Monday, July 22, 1946, by the militant right-wing Zionist underground organization the Irgun on the British administrative headquarters for Palestine, which was housed in the southern wing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem. 91 people of various nationalities were killed, and 46 were injured.
King David Hotel bombing
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Amichai Paglin, Chief of Operations of the Irgun, developed a remote-controlled mortar with a range of four miles, which was nicknamed the V3 by British military engineers. In 1945, after attacks using the mortar had been made on several police stations, six V3s were buried in the olive grove park south of the King David Hotel. Three were aimed at the government printing press
and three at the hotel itself. The intention was to fire them on the King's birthday, but the Haganah learned about the plan and warned the British through Teddy Kollek of the Jewish Agency. Army sappers then dug them up. On another occasion, members of an unknown group threw grenades, which missed, at the hotel.
King David Hotel bombing
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In 1929, Palestine Hotels Ltd. purchased on Jerusalem's Julian’s Way, today King David Street. Half the construction costs were paid by Ezra Mosseri, an affluent Egyptian Jewish banker and director of the National Bank of Egypt, and another 46% by other wealthy Cairo Jews. The approximately 4% remaining was paid by the National Bank, which purchased 693 shares of the company between 1934 and 1943.
King David Hotel
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The Irgun committed the attack in response to Operation Agatha, known in Israel as "Black Saturday". British troops had searched the Jewish Agency on June 29 and confiscated large quantities of documents directly implicating the Haganah in the Jewish insurgency against Britain. The intelligence information was taken to the King David Hotel, where it was initially kept in the offices of the Secretariat in the southern wing. In order to destroy the incriminating documentation, the Irgun therefore determined to destroy that wing of the hotel.
King David Hotel bombing
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The hotel dropped the Sheraton name in 1975, after the opening of the brand new Four Seasons Sheraton Hotel nearby, becoming the "King Edward Hotel", but it remained part of Sheraton for another three years, until 1978. After a number of years of decline, Trans Nation, Inc. bought the hotel in 1979 for $6.3 million and closed it on September 2, 1979, for a $30 million restoration designed by Stanford Downey Architects Inc. The property reopened May 7, 1981, as part of Trusthouse Forte Hotels, which bought the hotel outright on December 23 of that year. When Forte acquired hotels from Air France in 1994, the King Edward was rechristened " King Edward". The chain was involved in several other acquisitions and mergers between 1996 and 2003 when the brand came under the ownership of Lehman Brothers Holdings.
The Omni King Edward Hotel
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The hotel was the site of the central offices of the British Mandatory authorities of Palestine, principally the Secretariat of the Government of Palestine and the Headquarters of the British Armed Forces in Palestine and Transjordan. When planned, the attack had the approval of the Haganah, the principal Jewish paramilitary group in Palestine, though, unbeknownst to the Irgun, this had been cancelled by the time the operation was carried out. It was conceived as part of a response to Operation Agatha (a series of widespread raids, including one on the Jewish Agency, conducted by the British authorities) and was the deadliest directed at the British during the Mandate era (1920–1948).
King David Hotel bombing