On the evening of 15 April 1936, a group of Arabs believed to be followers of Izz al-Din al-Qassam near Anabta constructed a roadblock on the road between Nablus and Tulkarm, stopping about 20 vehicles moving along that road, and demanding arms and cash from the drivers. The Arabs separated two Jewish drivers and one passenger from the others and shot them. Two of the shooting victims died; one survived. The Arabs told their victims that they were gathering the money and munitions to carry onthe work of the "Holy Martyrs" who had worked with Izz ad-Din al-Qassam with the goal of killing "all Jews and Britons in Palestine." One of the other drivers in the convoy was left unharmed when he shouted "I am a Christian German," and was told to "Go ahead for Hitler's sake." One of the dead, Zvi Danenberg, was driving a truckload of crated chickens to Tel Aviv. Danenberg survived for 5 days before dying of his wounds. Yisrael Hazan, age 70, died immediately after being shot; he had recently immigrated to Palestine from Salonika. He is buried in the Trumpeldor Cemetery.
Funeral and protests
Two Arab laborers were killed on the following night near Petah Tikva, one describing the attackers as Jews before he died. Hazan's 17 April funeral in Tel Aviv was the scene of demonstrations with thousands of protestors marching against the British government of Palestine and against the Arab attacks on Jews. "All the stores in the city were closed. The factories also stopped work during the funeral." According to a British report, on 17 April, cases of assault by Jews against Arabs "took place in Herzl Street, ha-Yarkon Street, Allenby Road near the General Post Office, outside the Cinema Moghraby and at the seashore bus terminus". The Anabta/Tulkarm shooting is widely seen as prelude to or as the beginning of the violence and killings of the 1936–39 Arab revolt in Palestine, which began on The Bloody Day in Jaffa, 19 April 1936. Within days, memorial books were being sold with Hazan's photo on the cover, and a text describing him as "the first victim," and promising yizkor memorial prayers along with "pictures and facts" about Jews killed by Arabs during Nisan 5696.
Consequences
In the aftermath of the incidents in April, Britain adopted a form of statutory military lawconsisting of reprisals and collective punishment, which often served to strike at the population because actual fighters, who were supported by civilians, were difficult to identify. The measures taken included systematic destruction of Arab property during search raids, particularly in the rural areas; house demolitions, often consisting of blowing up the finer houses in the area concerned; the looting of Palestinian property, though officially frowned on; the despoiling of food reserves; collective fines imposed on villages; and setting up military outposts in villages with the residents required to bear the burden by covering the expense. The British heavily censored Arab-language newspapers to conceal reports of their activities: the same did not apply to the Hebrew-language press which managed to get better coverage of the military's actions in the field.
