Rekhesh ( he, רֶכֶשׁ, ''lit.'' Acquisitions) was the arms and munitions procurement branch of the
Haganah
Haganah ( he, הַהֲגָנָה, lit. ''The Defence'') was the main Zionist paramilitary organization of the Jewish population ("Yishuv") in Mandatory Palestine between 1920 and its disestablishment in 1948, when it became the core of the Is ...
Jewish defense force in
Mandatory Palestine
Mandatory Palestine ( ar, فلسطين الانتدابية '; he, פָּלֶשְׂתִּינָה (א״י) ', where "E.Y." indicates ''’Eretz Yiśrā’ēl'', the Land of Israel) was a geopolitical entity established between 1920 and 1948 i ...
, in the middle 1940s, at a time when the British were not allowing the Jews to have arms.
Rekhesh stole arms from British and Allied military bases, bought weapons on the
black market
A black market, underground economy, or shadow economy is a clandestine market or series of transactions that has some aspect of illegality or is characterized by noncompliance with an institutional set of rules. If the rule defines the ...
and imported them from legitimate suppliers.
[Adelman, 2008, p. 156.]
The organization was expert at modifying, dismantling, and packing weapons so that they could be smuggled into Palestine without detection by the British authorities.
was head of the organization and
Ehud Avriel one of its main operatives.
Early Operations of Israeli Intelligence, Jewish Agency for Israel
, Accessed 24 May 2009.
Notes
References
*Adelman, Jonathan R. (2008). ''The Rise of Israel: A History of a Revolutionary State''. Routledge.
*Deacon, Richard (1978). ''The Israeli Secret Service''. Taplinger Pub. Co. {{ISBN, 978-0-8008-4266-6
Haganah units
Arms trafficking