Walter Guinness, 1st Baron Moyne - Assassination

Assassination

In the early afternoon of 6 November 1944, Eliyahu Bet-Zuri and Eliyahu Hakim of the Jewish underground group Lehi waited for Moyne near his home in Cairo following a well-planned and much practised plan of action to assassinate Moyne. They were hanged for the assassination.

Moyne arrived in his car with his driver, Corporal Fuller, his secretary, Dorothy Osmond, and his ADC, Major Andrew Hughes-Onslow. The ADC went to open the front door of the residence and the driver got out to open the door for Moyne. Hakim then pulled the car door open and shot Moyne three times, while Bet-Zuri killed the driver. The two assassins fled on their bicycles, pursued by an Egyptian motorcycle policeman who had been alerted by Major Hughes-Onslow. Hakim tried to shoot the policeman but he fired back and Hakim fell, wounded. The two were surrounded by an angry mob until they were extracted by the police. Moyne was rushed to hospital but died of his wounds that evening. As the principal witness at the trial, Major Hughes Onslow became a marked man and was sent to Aden and then to Khartoum for his safety. He subsequently said: "No doubt Lord Moyne could have been regarded as a target for political assassination, but the shooting of the chauffeur was pure murder."

According to Lehi leader Natan Yellin-Mor, the group's founder Ya'ir Stern had considered the possibility of assassinating the British Minister Resident in the Middle East as early as 1941 (before Moyne held the position). Moyne's predecessor Richard Casey was deemed unsuitable because he was Australian. When Moyne replaced Casey in 1944, planning for the operation began.

As well as being the highest British official within Lehi's reach, Moyne was regarded as personally responsible for Britain's Palestine policy. In particular, he was regarded as one of the architects of Britain's strict immigration policy, and to have been responsible for the British hand in the Struma disaster. According to Bell, Lord Moyne was known to the underground as an Arabist who had consistently followed an anti-Zionist line.

According to Yaakov Banai (Mazal), who served as the commander of the fighting unit of Lehi, there were three purposes in the assassination:

1. To show the world that this conflict wasn't between a government and its citizens like Britain tried to show but between citizens and a foreign rule.
2. To prove that the conflict was between the Jewish People and the British Imperialism.
3. To take the "War of Liberation" out of the Land of Israel and the Yishuv. The trial wasn't planned but the action had to capture a place in the world press and lead political thoughts.