That Other Jewish Agency Blast

The carbomb explosion at the Jewish Agency buildings in 1948 is well known.

But there was another.

The details of the one more famous are here:

SUPPLEMENTARY REPORT(Explosion at Jewish Agency Building on the 11th March, 1948)


The following account of the explosion at the Jewish Agency Building in Jerusalem on the 11th March, 1948, is based on information obtained as a result of police investigations carried out on the 11th and 12th March.(a) At 9.46 a.m. on the 11th March, a heavy explosion occurred at the Jewish Agency Headquarters Office is King George V Avenue, Jerusalem. Fire broke out immediately afterwards and the casualty figures reported by 8.0 p.m. On the 12th March are as follows: -

13 Jews Killed

33 Jews seriously injured

51 Jews slightly injured.

(b) Due to the refusal of Jews at the scene of the incident to allow British or Jewish Police Officers access to the Buildings or facilities to make a proper examination of the remains of the vehicle understood to have carried the explosive charges or to interrogate witnesses, it has been difficult to obtain an authoritative version of what took place. (Some of the difficulties with which the authorities have been faced in conducting this investigation are set out later in this Report).(c) It appears that a saloon car bearing United States Consular registration plates and possibly flying a United States flag, drove up to the Jewish Agency Building.(d) According to some witnesses (not yet interrogated by the Police), the car was driven by its usual chauffeur, a Christian Arab, who was in blue Consular uniform and who was known to the Jewish guards at the entrance.(e) The Jewish guards, therefore, allowed the vehicle to enter the courtyard where it seems to have been parked close to the Karen Hayesod wing of the building.(f) The explosion occurred a few moments later.(g) What happened to the driver is not yet known.(h) It has been established that a car, the description of which corresponds to that of the vehicle used in this attack, is missing from the United States Consulate General; The chauffeur left the Consulate General at 9.0 a.m. to collect newspapers from a shop in Mamillah Road but according to employees at this shop, neither he nor any other person collected newspapers for the Consulate General.(i) Neither the vehicle nor the driver have yet been accounted for.(j) Owing to the difficulties placed in the way of the authorities investigating this incident, details of damage to the building have not yet been obtained but a British Broadcasting Corporation correspondent, who was held under arrest in the Building by Jews shortly after the explosion, was later released and allowed to inspect the damage.(k) This correspondent is understood to have said that the top floor of the Keren Hayesod wing had been sliced off and that the walls facing the courtyard were tottering and charred by fire is further stated that every office in the building had suffered blast damage and that eight or ten Jewish Agency trucks and other vehicles standing in the yard at the time of the explosion had been extensively damage.

Some more:

... The chauffeur, Anton Daoud, has disappeared. He reported to the consulate this morning and picked up the car, despite the fact that this was his day off. Although many persons saw him before the blast, no one at the consulate has seen him since. Consular officials also revealed that one of the staff cars was stolen yesterday and another last week.

The major damage was inflicted on two stories of one wing of the building. The offices of the Palestine Foundation Fund were completely demolished and Leib Jaffe, 72, its director, was killed. Jaffe was well-known in the United States where he worked for the Foundation Fund during the war years. Isaac Ben Zvi, president of the Jewish National Council, who was in the Council’s office in another wing of the building, was unscathed...

And on page 143 here. 

But there was a second attempt to blow up a Jewish Agency office in Jerusalem, at 5 Ben Yehudah Street on the night of March 16, 1947 and this is how it was reported in the Palestine Post:

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