1940 in Mandatory Palestine

Incumbents

• High Commissioner - Sir Harold MacMichael
• Emir of Transjordan - Abdullah I bin al-Hussein
• Prime Minister of Transjordan - Tawfik Abu al-Huda

  Events

• 27 April – A friendly association football match between the national teams of Mandatory Palestine and Lebanon takes place at the Maccabiah Stadium in Tel Aviv; Mandatory Palestine beats Lebanon 5–1.
• June – The Zionist underground paramilitary group "Lehi" is established by Avraham Stern with the aim of forcibly evicting the British from Palestine.
• 9 September – The Italian Air Force bombs Tel Aviv causing 137 deaths.
• 25 November – The Patria, a French-built ocean liner, carrying approximately 1,800 Jewish refugees from Nazi-occupied Europe to Palestine, sinks in the Haifa harbour after a bomb carried covertly on board by the Haganah to explodes; 260 people are killed and another 172 injured.
• 12 December – The MV Salvador carrying some 327 Bulgarian Jewish refugees from Nazi-occupied Europe to Palestine, is wrecked in a violent storm in the Sea of Marmora, near Istanbul; 204 passengers including 66 children are drowned.

  Notable births

• 25 January - Avraham Lanir, Israeli fighter pilot, highest ranking Israeli Air Force pilot to fall into enemy hands
• 25 January - Giora Leshem, Israeli poet and publisher
• 26 February - Amos Kloner, Israeli archaeologist
• 29 February - Uri Milstein, Israeli historian
• 12 March - Eitan Haber, Israeli journalist
• 26 March - Haim Oron, Israeli politician
• 1 April - Amos Yaron, Israeli general
• 19 April - Yaron Ezrahi, Israeli political theorist
• 1 May - Elana Eden, Israeli actress
• 10 May - Zeidan Atashi, Druze Israeli politician and diplomat
• 29 May - Eliezer Shlomo Schick, Israeli Hasidic rabbi
• 6 June - Asa Kasher, Israeli philosopher and linguist
• 17 July - Faisal Husseini, Palestinian Arab politician and senior member of PLO
• 1 August - Ram Loevy, Israeli television director and screenwriter
• 4 August - Eliyahu Ben Haim, Israeli-American rabbi, prominent leader of the Sephardic Jewish community in New York City
• August 15 - Ze'ev Revach, comedian, movie actor, director
• 24 August - Yaron London, Israeli media personality, journalist, actor and songwriter
• 12 September - Amatzia Chen, Israeli general
• 3 October - Tamar Gozansky, Israeli politician
• 18 October - Uzi Even, Israeli scientist and politician, first openly gay member of the Knesset
• 20 October - Iftach Spector, Israeli fighter pilot
• 23 October - Fouad Twal, the Roman Catholic archbishop and Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem since June 2008
• 24 October - Yossi Sarid, Israeli politician
• 24 October - Dan Shilon, Israeli radio broadcaster, journalist, TV host and media personality
• 18 November - Haim Harari, Israeli theoretical physicist; President of the Weizmann Institute of Science
• 24 December - Shaul Amor, Israeli politician
• Full date unknown
• * Amin al-Hindi, Palestinian Arab, intelligence chief of the Palestinian National Authority
• * Laila Shawa, Palestinian Arab artist
• * Motti Ashkenazi, Israeli war hero of the Yom Kippur War and protest leader

  Notable deaths

• 4 August - Ze'ev Jabotinsky, Russian -born Revisionist Zionist leader, author, orator, soldier, and founder of the Jewish Self-Defense Organization in Odessa
• 29 December - Dov Hoz, Russian -born Zionist leader, founding member of the Haganah, and aviation pioneer