During the afternoon of 4 October 1956, a squad of 10 armed Palestinian Fedayeen militants infiltrated Israel from Jordan.

The militants began by attacking the first vehicle with machine gun fire, killing all four of the passengers in the car.

An Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman blamed the killings on a "well trained and organized group from Jordan.

[6] As a result, Israel decided to retaliate in response to Negev desert road ambush and to an 4 October attack in which infiltrators from Jordan killed two Israeli laborers in an orchard near Even Yehuda and cut off their ears.

On 10 October, the Israeli military conducted a counterattack codenamed Operation Samaria in which the IDF attacked the Qalqilya police station at the Tegart fort.