A two-year campaign by the Axis powers to bring the war directly to Mandatory Palestine
ON a warm July evening in 1940, the skies over Haifa erupted with the unfamiliar blare of air raid sirens. As people rushed to shelters, the drone of aircraft engines filled the air. This raid, carried out by a group of five Italian bombers commanded by Major Ettore Muti, marked the start of a two-year campaign by the Axis powers to bring the war directly to Mandatory Palestine.
This assault was rooted in a change in military strategy in the mid-1930s when Italy, under Benito Mussolini’s rule, began viewing Britain as a potential foe. The Italian military had been eyeing targets in the eastern Mediterranean, including Palestine, since the Ethiopian War of 1935–36. Haifa, with its oil refineries and British naval base, was of particular interest to Italian strategists.
When Italy entered World War II on June 10, 1940, the stage was set for conflict in the region. The first raid on Haifa took place on July 15, 1940. Taking off from the Greek Dodecanese Islands (among them Rhodes), Italian bombers struck the Iraq Petroleum Company installation, setting three oil tanks ablaze and temporarily cutting the city’s power supply. Two Arab civilians were severely injured, one of whom later died. Anti-aircraft guns positioned on Mount Carmel did little to slow the raids.
The deadliest attack came on September 9, 1940, when Italian bombers struck Tel Aviv. Unlike Haifa, Tel Aviv was an open city without military targets and lacked early warning stations or anti-aircraft guns. The raid killed 137 people, including 117 Jews, seven Arabs, and an Australian soldier. Even as London was being targeted mercilessly by the German Luftwaffe, Winston Churchill sent a message of condolence to Tel Aviv mayor Israel Rokach following this devastating attack.
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