Israel recovers Altalena wreck after 78 years

Israel said Monday it had recovered the wreckage of the Altalena, an arms-smuggling boat whose sinking by Israeli forces in 1948 exposed political divisions that remain part of the country's history.

Heritage Minister Amihai Eliyahu said the ship was located intact at a depth of 503 metres west of Israel's coast, 78 years after what he called a painful and formative event for the young state.

The Altalena had sailed from France loaded with weapons for the Irgun, a militant Zionist force that conducted attacks against British colonial authorities and the local Palestinian population before Israel's establishment.

In June 1948, Israeli forces opened fire and sank the boat off Tel Aviv on the orders of David Ben Gurion, Israel's first prime minister. He sought to assert state authority and prevent any paramilitary rival to the Israeli military while the month-old state was at war with neighbouring Arab countries.

Sixteen Irgun members and three Israeli soldiers were killed. Irgun chief Menachem Begin asked his fighters to surrender to Israeli authorities, saying: “There will be no civil war with the enemy at our gates.”

Begin later became prime minister in 1977, marking the rise of right-wing nationalists and the defeat of the socialist movement associated with Ben Gurion.

Eliyahu, who is from the far right and serves in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government, called the Altalena “the story of a deep national wound” and said Begin had shown historical responsibility by preventing civil war.

Israel erected a monument to the fallen Altalena militants on the Tel Aviv seafront in 2008 and had searched for the wreckage for years. It was not immediately known what would happen to the wreckage.