March 11, 1948 – A car filled with explosives blew up in the courtyard of the Jewish Agency building in Jerusalem. 12 people were killed, among them Arie Leib Jaffe, one of the founders of the Zionist movement.
The car belonged to Daud, an Arab driver who was working two blocks away from the Jewish Agency, and was well known in the area. Fawzi al Kuttub, SS trained demolitions expert, packed the car with a quarter ton of TNT and a timer mechanism that used a wristwatch.
Daud parked the car in front of the Hagannah headquarters at the Jewish agency. An alert guard recognized the car. Since he knew the Arab driver he did not suspect and rolled it to a better parking spot, next to ‘Keren-Hayesod’ wing in the building, where it blew up.
The guard and 12 others in the civilian wing of the Jewish agency died, among them Arie Leib Jaffe, one of the founders of the Zionist movement. Born in 1876, he was the director of Keren Hayesod from 1926. Among the injured were Aura Herzog, wife of the first President of Israel Chaim Weizmann.
