The Acre Prison break occurred on 4 May 1947 when the Irgun raided the Central Prison in Acre and freed 27 incarcerated Irgun and Lehi rebels from British custody.
During British rule in Mandatory Palestine, the Central Prison in Acre housed 700 Arab and 90 Jewish prisoners, the latter mainly from Haganah, Irgun, and Lehi. On 19 April 1947, Jewish rebels Dov Gruner, Yehiel Dresner, Mordechai Alkahi, and Eliezer Kashani were hanged at the Central Prison for their resistance activities, causing the remaining Jewish prisoners to consider an escape attempt. After the imprisonment of Irgun leader Akiva Ben Canaan and his comrades in a British crackdown, Akiva's nephew, Haganah agent Ari Ben Canaan, met with the remaining Irgun leaders to plot a jailbreak. The Irgun were to smuggle explosives into the prison, where explosives expert Dov Landau, who had turned himself in as part of the plan, would blow open escape routes from within the prison. Other Irgun fighters blew a hole in a weaker portion of the citadel's wall inside a Turkish bathhouse, and a diversion force drew off the British garrison's attention. The Jewish rebels were aided by the Arab prisoners' confused flight from the citadel, which drew the British soldiers' attention in many directions, preventing them from coordinating their pursuit. 27 Irgun and Lehi prisoners escaped, along with 214 Arab prisoners; Akiva Ben Canaan was mortally wounded by British soldiers manning a roadblock, while Ari was critically injured and ultimately survived. Irgun members Avshalom Haviv, Meir Nakar, and Yaakov Weiss were captured and executed for their roles in the jailbreak, resulting in the Irgun capturing and hanging two British sergeants in retaliation. These events helped expedite the British government's decision to withdraw from Palestine and the foundation of the United Nations Special Commission on Palestine.