Immediately following the March 1950 Denaturalisation Act, the emigration movement faced significant challenges. Initially, local Zionist activists forbade the Iraqi Jews from registering for emigration with the Iraqi authorities, because the Israeli government was still discussing absorption planning. However, on April 8, 1950, a bomb exploded in a Jewish cafe in Baghdad. A meeting of the Zionist leadership later that day agreed to allow registration without waiting for the Israeli government. A proclamation encouraging registration was made throughout Iraq in the name of the State of Israel. At the same time, immigrants were also entering Israel from Poland and Romania, countries in which Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion assessed there was a risk that the Communist authorities would soon "close their gates", and Israel therefore delayed the transportation of Iraqi Jews. According to Esther Meir-Glitzenstein, "The thousands of poor Jews who had left or been expelled from the peripheral cities, and who had gone to Baghdad to wait for their opportunity to emigrate, were in an especially bad state. They were housed in public buildings and were being supported by the Jewish community. The situation was intolerable." The delay became a significant problem for the Iraqi government of Nuri al-Said (who replaced Tawfiq al-Suwaidi in mid-September 1950), as the large number of Jews "in limbo" created problems politically, economically and for domestic security. "Particularly infuriating" to the Iraqi government was the fact that the source of the problem was the Israeli government.