JERUSALEM — The wreckage of the Altalena, an arms-smuggling boat shelled by the Israeli military on the orders of Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion in 1948, was located overnight about 20 kilometers off Tel Aviv after decades of searches, it was announced on Monday.The sinking of the ship by the military just after Israel’s founding in 1948 exposed divisions that persist even today.The Altalena had set sail from France loaded with weapons packed for the Irgun, the militant Zionist force that conducted attacks against the British colonial authorities and the local Palestinian population in the quest to establish Israel.In June 1948, Israeli forces opened fire and sank the boat in waters off Tel Aviv on the orders of Ben Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister. He wanted to exert his authority and prevent the emergence of any paramilitary rival to the Israeli military in the month-old state, which was in the throes of war with neighboring Arab countries.“At 12:30 am, at a depth of 503 meters, west of the coast of Israel, the Altalena ship was located intact — 78 years after that painful and seminal event that shook the young State of Israel,” Heritage Minister Amihai Eliyahu said in a joint statement with National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir.They credited “long months of meticulous planning and preparation” and “special sensors and advanced survey systems” for the find, saying more details were to be revealed at a press conference.A military spokesperson said the Israeli military had no involvement in the operation to locate the vessel.The gun-running ship was initially brought to Israel by Menachem Begin’s right-wing Irgun militia in June 1948.With the state and its military only a few weeks old, Ben-Gurion, who was at bitter odds with Begin, demanded that the ship and cargo be turned over to the newly formed Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), sparking an armed confrontation..As the ship reached the coast, a standoff ensued that ended in a shootout between Irgun members aboard and IDF soldiers on the shore, who were ordered by Ben-Gurion to destroy the vessel.The ship was set ablaze by fire from cannons used by the forces on the shore under the command of a young Yitzhak Rabin, later the IDF chief of General Staff and prime minister.Sixteen Irgun members and three Israeli soldiers were killed. Irgun chief Begin asked his fighters to surrender to the Israeli authorities with words that would become famous: “There will be no civil war with the enemy at our gates.”The conflict pitted against each other the two political blocs that would define Israel. Begin became prime minister in 1977, ushering in the rise of right-wing nationalists and sweeping out the socialist movement launched under Ben Gurion.Eliyahu, who announced the salvaging of the Altalena, hails from the far-right, which has taken power as part of a government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.He called the Altalena “the story of a deep national wound, and the story of the historical responsibility that Menachem Begin showed when he prevented a civil war.”“A country that is not afraid to touch on the painful chapters of its history is a stronger country,” he said.Israel erected a monument to the fallen Altalena militants in 2008 on the Tel Aviv seafront and has been searching for the wreckage for years, with crews often working in secrecy.It was not immediately known what would happen to the ship’s wreckage.
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