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.
12 October – The British Government announces sending a further four battalions to Palestine.[5]
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.[6] 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".[6]
