Rise of Lehi

Lehi, also called the Stern Gang after its founder Avraham Stern, was a militant Zionist underground group in British-ruled Palestine. It split from the Irgun, which had agreed to a truce with Britain at the start of the Second World War, and it continued to attack the British authorities, whom it saw as the main obstacle to a Jewish state. Lehi carried out assassinations, including that of Lord Moyne, the British minister resident in the Middle East, in Cairo in 1944, and in 1948 of the United Nations mediator Count Folke Bernadotte. Its members also took part with the Irgun in the attack on the village of Deir Yassin. The British and many others regarded it as a terrorist group. It dissolved after the creation of Israel, and some of its leaders, such as Yitzhak Shamir, later entered politics.

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