Palestinians Captured in Israeli Raid On Prison

U.S. and British Monitors Withdraw, Triggering Retaliation on Foreigners

Photos
Israeli Forces Seize Palestinian Jail
Amid gunfire, street clashes and billowing black smoke from explosives, Israeli forces laid siege Tuesday to a Palestinian jail in the West Bank town of Jericho demanding custody of six prisoners there alleged to have participated in the assassination of Israel's tourism minister in 2001.

JERICHO, West Bank, March 14 -- Israeli forces seized six Palestinian prisoners here Tuesday after a 10-hour assault that reduced to rubble much of the Palestinian jail compound where they were being held. The operation triggered a furious response by Palestinians across the West Bank and Gaza Strip, much of it directed at foreign citizens and institutions.

The operation, coming two weeks before Israel's national elections, left at least two Palestinians dead. Dozens more were injured by gunfire or tear gas used to break up street clashes throughout the day. Employing armor, large-caliber machine guns and explosives, the incursion marked Israel's most aggressive push into a West Bank city in months.

The main target of the raid was Ahmed Saadat, head of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which Israel holds responsible for the October 2001 assassination of Tourism Minister Rehavam Zeevi. Since April 2002, Saadat had been held with four other front members implicated in the killing, guarded by a team of U.S. and British monitors.

The monitors left the prison complex Tuesday morning because of security fears that have been mounting since Hamas, following its victory in January parliamentary elections, said it would release Saadat later this month. Shortly after the monitors departed, Israeli forces began a day-long siege that rippled through the Palestinian territories before Saadat and the rest of the wanted prisoners surrendered just after dusk.

Palestinian gunmen kidnapped about nine foreigners in the Gaza Strip and attacked British Council offices there and in the West Bank city of Ramallah hours after the operation in Jericho began. Many of those abducted, including two female French physicians, were released by early evening.

The United Nations shut down operations in Gaza, imperiling relief assistance there, and the European Union monitoring mission at the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt also pulled out. The International Committee of the Red Cross withdrew some of its staff members after one of its employees, a Swiss national, was taken by gunmen. He was later released.

In the streets of downtown Jericho, groups of young men erected barricades of flaming tires and overturned trash bins and stacks of concrete blocks. By twilight, the main roads were littered with stones.

Several Palestinian officials asserted that the operation was calculated to appeal to Israeli voters who have criticized a proposal by the acting prime minister, Ehud Olmert, to define Israel's final borders through unilateral withdrawal from large parts of the West Bank.

"This was a demonstration for the Israeli elections and no more," said Hassan Barqawi, the general director of Jericho's hospital. "They could do this operation in 15 minutes. But to take 12 hours, well, it is only election propaganda for the Israeli voters."

Israeli officials said the timing of the operation was determined by the departure of the U.S. and British monitoring delegation, whose supervisors warned the Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, in a letter last week that they would withdraw if security at the jail was not improved.

Jack Straw, Britain's foreign secretary, said in a statement to the House of Commons that "over the last month it has been increasingly clear the Palestinian Authority has been unable to do this." He added, "Ultimately, the safety of our personnel has to take precedence."

"What became clear to Israel is that it needed to take the initiative and bring them to a prison in Israel," said Gideon Meir, a senior Israeli Foreign Ministry official. "No democracy can tolerate one of its elected politicians, or civilians, being killed. They must be kept behind bars."