The Attack on the Sharona Police

The joint force operating in Sharona was made up of Company 5 of the Second Battalion, and the Revisionists and Field Corps from Tel-Aviv. The force was headed by Danny Mass, commander of Company 5 (later on, during the War of Independence, was also commander of 'The Lamed-Hay' convoy, which fell on its way to the besieged Gush-Etsion. The Hagana branch in Tel-Aviv supplied the weapons for the operation. The weapons were taken out of a cache, arriving late and covered in grease. It took some time to prepare it for the operation. As a result, the force arrived at the target two hours later than the zero hour determined in the plan. The reports that came in to the Sharona police about attacking the rest of the bases put the policemen into high alert. The force was spotted at the onset of the break in and was fired at. Danny Mass decided to stick to the plan, despite the loss of the surprise element and the British barrage, which killed two of his soldiers. The fence was broken into and Mass hurried with his saboteurs over to the armored cars in the building's courtyard. The covering force retreated due to a coincidence. The British lit up fireworks in colors predetermined as a sign for retreat. Despite the lack of coverage, the saboteurs continued their advancement and hit the armored cars. One more warrior died and a second one critically wounded at that stage. The force retreated from the target under heavy fire.
The warriors that died in the operation: Arieh Kesselman and Shraga Har from the Tel-Aviv Field Corps, and Amiram Belinkov and Yedidia Aharon from the Palmach Reserve. That was the first Palmach operation during the Resistance Movement period, in which a number of its warriors were killed. Thousands of people participated in the funeral march towards the Nachlat-Yitzhak cemetery in Tel-Aviv. That was a demonstration of the Yishuv's painful identification with the Resistance Movement and its operations.