4 January – The British government appoints the Woodhead Commission to explore the practicalities of the partition of Palestine.
10 January – James Leslie Starkey, a noted British archaeologist of the ancient Near East and Palestine who leads the first excavations in Tel Lachish, is killed by a gang of armed Arabs near Bayt Jibrin on a track leading from Bayt Jibrin to Hebron.
23 February – The Port of Tel Aviv officially opens, as a competing (Jewish) port to the port in Jaffa, the latter having been crippled by the Arab revolt and general strike since 1936.
6 July – 21 persons were killed in a bombing at Haifa vegetable market, mostly Arabs according to a discussion in UK Parliament.[6] Others reported higher casualties, 18 Arabs and 5 Jews were killed by two simultaneous bombs in the Arab melon market in Haifa, 79 people were wounded.[7]
16 July – 10 Arabs were killed and 29 wounded by a bomb at a marketplace in Jerusalem.[7]
25 July – 39 Arabs were killed and over 60 wounded by a second bomb in the Haifa vegetable market.[7]
26 July – 53 persons were killed and 45 wounded in a. bombing at Haifa vegetable market, according to a conversation in the UK Parliament the following year.[8]
16 August – Former Jewish policeman Mordechai Schwarcz executed for the murder of an Arab policeman
17 August – The founding of the moshav Beit Yehoshua
25 August – The founding of the kibbutz Ein HaMifratz
26 August – 24 Arabs were killed and 39 wounded by a bomb in the Jaffa vegetable market.[9]
30 August – The founding of the kibbutz Ma'ayan Tzvi
12 October – The British Government announces sending a further four battalions to Palestine.[11]
18 October – British army troops regain control of the old city of Jerusalem, which is occupied by Arab extremists in early October.
9 November – A technical British committee, known as the Woodhead Commission, rejected the Peel Commission partition plan mostly on the grounds that it could not be achieved without a large forced transfer of Arabs.[12] It proposed "a modification of partition which, ...seems, subject to certain reservations, to form a satisfactory basis of settlement", if the U.K is prepared to provide a "sufficient assistance to enable the Arab State to balance its budget".[12]
