1940 in Mandatory Palestine

Events in the year 1940 in the British Mandate of Palestine.

Incumbents

Events

27 April – A friendly [1940 Mandatory Palestine national football team|Mandatory Palestine v Lebanon national football team|Lebanon football match|association football match] between the national teams of Mandatory Palestine and Lebanon takes place at the Maccabiah Stadium in Tel Aviv; Mandatory Palestine beats Lebanon 5–1.
June – The Zionist underground paramilitary group "Lehi" is established by Avraham Stern with the aim of forcibly evicting the British from Palestine.
9 September – The Italian Air Force bombs Tel Aviv causing 137 deaths.
25 November – The Patria, a French-built ocean liner, carrying approximately 1,800 Jewish refugees from Nazi-occupied Europe to Palestine, sinks in the Haifa harbour after a bomb carried covertly on board by the Haganah to explodes; 260 people are killed and another 172 injured.
12 December – The MV Salvador carrying some 327 Bulgarian Jewish refugees from Nazi-occupied Europe to Palestine, is wrecked in a violent storm in the Sea of Marmora, near Istanbul; 204 passengers including 66 children are drowned.

Notable births

25 January – Avraham Lanir, Israeli fighter pilot, highest ranking Israeli Air Force pilot to fall into enemy hands
25 January – Giora Leshem, Israeli poet and publisher
26 February – Amos Kloner, Israeli archaeologist
29 February – Uri Milstein, Israeli historian
12 March – Eitan Haber, Israeli journalist
26 March – Haim Oron, Israeli politician
1 April – Amos Yaron, Israeli general
19 April – Yaron Ezrahi, Israeli political theorist
1 May – Elana Eden, Israeli actress
10 May – Zeidan Atashi, Druze Israeli politician and diplomat
29 May – Eliezer Shlomo Schick, Israeli Hasidic rabbi
6 June – Asa Kasher, Israeli philosopher and linguist
17 July – Faisal Husseini, Palestinian Arab politician and senior member of PLO
1 August – Ram Loevy, Israeli television director and screenwriter
4 August – Eliyahu Ben Haim, Israeli-American rabbi, prominent leader of the Sephardic Jewish community in New York City
15 August – Ze'ev Revach, comedian, movie actor, director
24 August – Yaron London, Israeli media personality, journalist, actor and songwriter
12 September – Amatzia Chen, Israeli general
3 October – Tamar Gozansky, Israeli politician
18 October – Uzi Even, Israeli scientist and politician, first openly gay member of the Knesset
20 October – Iftach Spector, Israeli fighter pilot
23 October – Fouad Twal, the Roman Catholic archbishop and Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem since June 2008
24 October – Yossi Sarid, Israeli politician
24 October – Dan Shilon, Israeli radio broadcaster, journalist, TV host and media personality
18 November – Haim Harari, Israeli theoretical physicist; President of the Weizmann Institute of Science
24 December – Shaul Amor, Israeli politician Full date unknown
* Amin al-Hindi, Palestinian Arab, intelligence chief of the Palestinian National Authority
* Laila Shawa, Palestinian Arab artist
* Motti Ashkenazi, Israeli war hero of the Yom Kippur War and protest leader

Notable deaths

4 August – Ze'ev Jabotinsky, Russian -born Revisionist Zionist leader, author, orator, soldier, and founder of the Jewish Self-Defense Organization in Odessa
29 December – Dov Hoz, Russian -born Zionist leader, founding member of the Haganah, and aviation pioneer