The Palmach was the elite combined strike forces and sayeret unit of the Haganah, the underground army of the Yishuv during the period of the British Mandate for Palestine. The Palmach was established in May 1941. By the outbreak of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, it consisted of over 2,000 men and women in three fighting brigades and auxiliary aerial, naval and intelligence units. With the creation of Israel's army, the three Palmach Brigades were disbanded. This and political reasons compelled many of the senior Palmach officers to resign in 1950.
"The German squad" of the Palmach on a training march.
Beit Keshet, First Palmach outpost, 1944
Small arms training of B Company
Palmach sappers in the ruins of a village, 1948
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)