The White City marks 80 years since the bombing of the Fascist Air Force, during which the city center was hit and more than a hundred people were killed, almost all of them civilians
A building damaged by the Italian bombing of Tel Aviv // Photo: Wikipedia
World War II is one of the most tragic periods in the history of the Jewish people and in the shadow of the events of the Holocaust, the hardships and victims sacrificed by the Jewish community in Israel are forgotten at sea the horrific evidence provided by the crimes of the Nazi regime.
But one of the most tragic events that befell the settlement during the war took place today 80 years ago, in the heart of the first Hebrew city, and caused a severe curl in the entire settlement.
At around 16:00 in the afternoon, the engine rumble of ten bombers of the Fascist Italy Air Force's Savoyat's sample was heard over Tel Aviv.
The bombers, who were on their way to attack the refineries in Haifa, encountered British fighter jets and headed south, towards Jaffa.
The pilots were instructed to bomb the port facilities in Tel Aviv and Jaffa, but the encounter with the British fighter jets dispersed the Italian bombers and caused them to drop most of the bombs in central Tel Aviv.
Most of the damage was done on Bogrush and Pinsker streets, and according to various figures, between 107 and 137 people were killed in the bombing.
Ruth Dayan, who was 24 at the time and volunteered as a nurse, helped treat the many wounded from the bombing.
Dayan said she saw a large pit open in a residential building near the clinic where she worked.
The Jewish dead were buried in a mass grave in the Nahalat Yitzhak cemetery.
In addition to the Jewish casualties, seven Arab civilians from the village of Somail, near today's Rabin Square, and one Australian soldier were also killed.
The community was outraged that the targets hit were all civilian and that even one military or strategic target had been attacked.
The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Winston Churchill, sent a letter to the then mayor of Tel Aviv, Israel Rokach, in which he strengthened the spirits of the residents of the bombed city.
The wife of the then President of the United States, Eleanor Reswell, also sent a letter of condolence to the residents of the city.
The British High Commissioner visited Tel Aviv, examined the damage and expressed his condolences to the city's residents and the heads of the Jewish community in the country.
In retaliation for the bombing of the diagnostic company, the Royal British Air Force bombed the Italian Air Force bases in the Dodecanese islands in occupied Greece, from which the bombers set out for Israel.
One of the British pilots was quoted as saying by the Reuters news agency after the attack, saying: "Since the guys from Rhodes and Ross are the ones who attacked Tel Aviv, we set out on this attack more willingly and with pleasure than usual."
In 2013, a live bomb was found near Sde Dov, a souvenir left over from the Italian bombing of Tel Aviv.
Police saboteurs inspected the bomb and neutralized it, now the shell of the bomb remains as a historical remnant of a crime committed against the Jewish settlement by fascist Italy.