After Kimchi's sentence was carried out, armed Irgun squads were sent into the streets of Jewish cities throughout Palestine, with orders to abduct and flog British soldiers.

In Netanya, armed Irgun men broke into the Hotel Metropole where they found Major Paddy Brett sitting with his wife in the lounge.

[4] The British Army launched a large cordon and search operation in the Karton Quarter of Tel Aviv, and in Netanya, Petah Tikva and Rishon LeZion, to hunt for the perpetrators, placing curfews and questioning thousands of people.

In the Kfar Saba area, roadblocks were set and a car transporting five armed Irgun men (carrying a whip) was caught.

One of them, Avraham Mizrahi, was killed when fire was opened at the car, while four others - Eliezer Kashani, Mordechai Alkahi, Yehiel Dresner, and Haim Golevsky - were captured.

[8] After Kashani, Alkahi, Dresner and Golevsky were captured, they were held in a British paratroopers' camp, during which they were repeatedly subjected to severe beatings and humiliations.

[9] The action shocked the Yishuv (Jewish community in Palestine), and the municipality of Petah Tikva, where Alkahi and two others were from, organized a petition on their behalf signed by 800 residents.

The British authorities also decided not to permit the men to have a traditional Jewish burial, or to grant their final request that they be buried in Rosh Pinna, near the grave of Shlomo Ben-Yosef.