Irgun Irgun (; shorthand for Ha'Irgun HaTzva'i HaLe'umi BeEretz Yisra'el, , "National Military Organization in the Land of Israel") was a militant Zionist group that operated in Palestine between 1931 and 1948. It was established as a militant offshoot of the earlier and larger Jewish paramilitary organization Haganah (HebrewIsrael Defence Forces at the start of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. In present-day