Israel Amir

Necessity is the mother of invention, as Israel Amir, who has died aged 99, learned on May 16 1948. Two days earlier, Israel had declared independence. Within hours, five Arab national armies invaded the state, and the Egyptian air force attacked Tel Aviv. Then Amir was given command of the newly created Israel Air Force (IAF).

The IAF had eight Auster light aircraft and no airstrips. Amir's acquisitions included 25 decommissioned German Messerschmitt 109 fighters from Czechoslovakia, and four B-17 Flying Fortress bombers from Florida. One was confiscated when it touched down in Portugal; the other three were refurbished at a secret IAF base in Czechoslovakia. On July 15 they arrived in Israel, and went on to bomb King Farouk's Palace in Cairo.

Amir developed the IAF's intelligence, constructed airfields and established training schools. He hired 3,000 personnel, including Canadian, South African, American and British veterans. Some led the aerial attack that halted Egypt's march on Tel Aviv. Despite heavy losses, the IAF took control of Israel's airspace.

After Amir's command ended in July 1948, he worked at the defence ministry until 1969. In retirement, he dabbled in business, and governed Israel's Magen David Adom (equivalent to the Red Cross).

Born in Russia, Amir emigrated to British Mandatory Palestine in 1923. He became a farm labourer and joined the Haganah, the armed wing of the Labour Zionist movement. A master at hiding weapons caches, in 1937 he became director of the militia's underground arms industry.

Five years later, Amir headed Haganah's information department, or Shai. It co-operated with Britain's Special Operations Executive against the Nazis and their regional sympathisers. But the marriage of convenience withered after the war, as Haganah subverted British attempts to stop Holocaust survivors reaching Palestine.

In May 1946, Haganah made Amir its Jerusalem field commander. In February 1948 he left for Europe, to recruit and train thousands of young Jewish refugees for the battlefields of Palestine.

After his death, Israeli defence officials said that his deeds "will remain etched on our hearts". No doubt Palestinians have less warm memories. Neither Arabs nor Jews liked the United Nations plan to turn Jerusalem into an international protectorate. The passage of UN partition resolution 181 in November 1947 triggered intercommunal violence in the holy city. Soon 40 to 50 people were being killed each day.

Amir distanced himself from the more radical Zionist Irgun militia, which bombed Arab civilians without provocation. But his stance hardened as Arab sniping and ambushes led Jews to flee mixed neighbourhoods. Frustrated at perceived British partiality to the Arabs, Amir siphoned 120 Haganah recruits into the Old City to fight in the turf wars.

More controversially, Amir decided to empty Jerusalem's western suburbs of their 28,000 Arab citizens. His agents disseminated threats, cut off telephones and fired in the air to create a sense of insecurity. On January 4 1948, Amir authorised saboteurs to blow up the Semiramis Hotel in Katamon - a haunt of Arab military leaders, he claimed. Twenty-six died in the blast, mainly Christian Arab civilians, plus the Spanish vice-consul.

Even Prime Minister Ben-Gurion denounced the action. But it had the desired effect: Arabs began deserting Katamon. Amir then ordered raids on Sheikh Badr, an Arab village straddling a strategic entrance to Jerusalem, and other suburbs.

Some call Israel Amir an ethnic cleanser. Yet his aerial skills - albeit directed from behind a desk - helped Israel survive its baptism of fire.

· Israel Amir (Zblodovsky), civil servant, born 1903; died November 1 2002