The Night of the Bridges was a Haganah venture on the night of 16 to 17 June 1946 in the British Mandate of Palestine, as part of the Jewish insurgency in Palestine (1944–7). Its aim was to destroy eleven bridges linking Mandatory Palestine to the neighboring countries Lebanon, Syria, Transjordan and Egypt, in order to suspend the transportation routes used by the British Army. Attacks on a further three bridges had been considered, but were not executed.
Yarmouk bridge ruins
Bridge of the Daughters of Jacob/Bnot Ya'akov in May 2009.
Haganah was the main Zionist paramilitary organization that operated for the Yishuv in the British Mandate for Palestine. It was founded in 1920 to defend the Yishuv's presence in the region, and was formally disbanded in 1948, when it became the core force integrated into the Israel Defense Forces shortly after the Israeli Declaration of Independence.
Hagana poster from the 1940s
Haganah fighters guarding Migdal Tzedek, 1936
In 1940 a Haganah bomb sank the SS Patria, killing 267 people
Marching Jewish troops in the British army (1942)