King David Hotel Bombing - Execution

Execution

The perpetrators met at 7 am at the Beit Aharon Talmud Torah. This was the first time they were informed of the target. The attack used approximately 350 kg (770 lb) of explosives spread over six charges. According to Begin, due to "consultations" about the cancellation of the attack on the David Brothers Building, the operation was delayed and started at about 12:00, an hour later than planned.

After placing the bombs, the Irgun men quickly slipped out and detonated a small explosive in the street outside the hotel to reportedly keep passers-by away from the area. The police report written in the aftermath of the bombing says that this explosion resulted in a higher death toll because it caused spectators from the hotel to gather in its south-west corner, directly over the bomb planted in its basement, and it also caused the presence there of injured Arabs who were brought into the Secretariat after their bus, which was passing, was rolled onto its side. The Arab workers in the kitchen fled after being told to do so.

During the attack, two Irgun casualties occurred, Avraham Abramovitz and Itzhak Tsadok. In one Irgun account of the bombing, that by Katz, the two were shot during the initial approach on the hotel, when a minor gunfight ensued with two British soldiers who had become suspicious. Irgun did not explain how the group would have been able to move 350 kg of home-made explosives into the hotel with the guards already alerted. In Yehuda Lapidot's, the men were shot as they were withdrawing after the attack. The latter agrees with the version of events presented by Bethell and Thurston Clarke and is more credible. According to Bethell, Abramovitz managed to get to the taxi getaway car along with six other men. Tsadok escaped with the other men on foot. Both were found by the police in the Jewish Old Quarter of Jerusalem the next day, with Abramovitz already dead from his wounds.