The King David Hotel of Jerusalem is one of the landmarks of the contested city. Built with locally sourced pink limestone and opened in 1931 by Ezra Mosseri, a wealthy Egyptian Jewish banker, the hotel, overlooking the Old City that is holy for all three Abrahamic faiths, stands as a symbol of both Israel’s Jewish roots and its bloody history.
From its earliest days under the British Mandate of Palestine, the hotel hosted royalty and prominent dignitaries. During the Mandate, the British turned the hotel’s southern wing into their administrative and military offices. On July 22, 1946, members of Irgun, a right-wing Zionist militia, entered the hotel disguised as Arab workers and waiters. Their mission: plant explosives in the basement of the main building. The powerful explosion brought down the western half of the southern wing, killing at least 91 people. The bombing, the deadliest attack carried out by Zionists against the British, was one of the earliest terrorist attacks in modern West Asia.
