Arab attackers massacred passengers of the הדסה HADASSAH medical convoy.

איתמר רדאעי ITAMAR RADA'I's scholarly account describes 112 travelers and 78 killed or presumed killed, including missing people. This is the later accepted scale of loss, not a count of 78 independently identified recovered bodies. The scholarly account qualifies its total as:

killed or presumed killed (the number includes the missing).¹

That qualification makes missing people part of the reported total rather than independently identified recovered bodies. The presence of escorts does not turn every nurse, orderly or university worker into a combatant. Nor can the whole group be classified as unarmed civilians.²

Several vehicles escaped; others remained trapped for hours. The surviving evidence establishes the burning of two buses with people inside. It does not provide a count of deaths by fire or prove that all those burned were hospital staff or patients.

The 29 April letter sent by the national president of הדסה HADASSAH transmitted a cable from ירושלים YERUŜALAYIM. It reported 76 deaths and a sequence beginning around 09:30, buses burning around 15:00 and evacuation of survivors around 16:30. It accused the army of delaying effective action for seven hours.³

The excerpt records eventual intervention:

4.30 p.m. Army took action, succeeded evacuating survivors to Hadassah Hospital.⁴

This is primary institutional evidence of the complaint and transmitted timeline, not an independent UN finding. The imperial delegation's response said seven people had been rescued from vehicles and described its forces' engagement. That defense does not settle whether effective intervention was avoidably late.⁵

The UN news digest of 14 April reported approximately 34 dead and twenty injured. JTA coverage on 14–15 April supplied changing figures. Those early estimates were incomplete information about the same attack, not additional incidents or totals to be added to the later 76 or 78.^{6 7 8}

The published accusations against imperial forces require logs and communications records to resolve responsibility for delays. The available evidence does not establish that the authorities deliberately supplied false route assurances or that an Iraqi state formation commanded the attack.

The institution's commemoration names hospital director חיים Yassky ḤAYIM and technician צבי לבנון ẒVI LEVANON, a father of a young child. Individual memorials identify רחל שמש RAḤEL ŜEMEŜ, a seventeen-year-old worker and volunteer, and רחמים יגאל קפוני RAḤAMIM YIGAEL KAFONI, who had studied medicine in Belgrade before German occupation and immigrated in 1944.^{9 10 11}

יוסף ארביב YOSEF ARBIV, born in Tripoli and raised in ארץ ישראל EREẒ YISRAʾEL after his family's immigration, was killed in a rescue force. His death must not automatically be added to 78 without checking which people the memorial total includes. None of these records establishes a last surviving Holocaust-family member claim.¹²

The attack's impact extended to care and teaching, but later evacuation plans and closure of facilities require their own dates. The massacre did not occur again when a later letter or newspaper described it.

The occurrence is 13 April 1948, ד׳ בניסן ה׳תש״ח 4th 𝑜𝑓 Nisan, AM 5708, supported by the transmitted institutional cable and next-day coverage. The reported morning-to-afternoon sequence lies within 4 Nisan; no individual after-sunset death is established. The complaint is 29 April, circulated on 30 April, and the 14–15 April press accounts are later reportage. These dates do not replace the attack date. The existing calendar review is retained without inferring new title or body approval. This uses the fixed Hebrew calendar’s daytime conversion; occurrence precision and sunset alternatives remain as stated.¹³

• How do mixed civilian and escort passengers affect classification?
• Which records could resolve the disagreement over delayed rescue?
• What is lost when names are replaced by unreconciled totals?