Jail raid sparks wave of attacks on foreigners

Israeli forces driving bulldozers and firing tank shells burst into a Palestinian prison in the West Bank town of Jericho today and pulled out dozens of inmates in their underwear in a raid targeting a group of prisoners linked to the killing an Israeli Cabinet minister.

Furious Palestinians attacked offices linked to the US and Europe and torched the British Council building in Gaza City.

Gunmen across Gaza and the West Bank also kidnapped nine foreigners, including an American university professor, a Swiss employee of the Red Cross and three journalists from France and South Korea.

The Palestinians blamed the Jericho raid on Britain and the US which removed their monitors from the jail just before the Israeli raid.

It was the most high-profile Israeli incursion into a Palestinian town in months and came just two weeks before hard-fought Israeli general elections.

Palestinians condemned the raid as a campaign stunt.

The raid came amid a breakdown in a carefully crafted four-year-old deal between the Palestinians, Israel, the US and Britain over the guarding of the prisoners, and it underscored the wider collapse of relations between Israel and the Palestinians since the militant Hamas group won the Palestinian elections.

Despite Israeli threats to kill the prisoners if they did not surrender, the main target of the raid, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine leader Ahmed Saadat, remained defiant.

“We are not going to surrender, we are going to face our destiny with courage,” he told Al-Jazeera television in a telephone interview from the jail.

Saadat said he held Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas partly responsible, saying he should have freed him earlier.

As he spoke, an explosion was heard in the background, and Saadat said: “I can’t continue. The situation is very difficult.” Then he hung up.

Throughout the day, dozens of prisoners in their underwear came out of the prison building, where they were being searched and blindfolded by Israeli troops.

Some of them were taken away.

Israeli officials said a number of prisoners were being targeted for arrest, including the five involved in the 2001 assassination.

A senior Israeli military official said the inmates must either surrender or face death and troops with loudspeakers called everyone inside to surrender.

Military officials said they had taken 180 Palestinians into custody by this afternoon, but not the wanted men.

The raid began this morning, with hundreds of Israeli troops entering the town and surrounding the prison.

Troops called over loudspeakers for prisoners to surrender.

The troops then burst through the front gate of the jail with a bulldozer, drove inside in armoured personnel carriers, and engaged in a shootout with the Palestinian police, said Akram Rajoub, the local security commander.

One policeman standing near the gate was killed in the shootout and a prisoner was also killed, security officials said.

It was not clear if the prisoner was one of those wanted by Israel.

Two large explosions were heard at the prison and thick smoke filled the sky.

Helicopters flew overhead.

Youths in the town threw rocks at the Israeli soldiers and burning tires were put in the roads.

Saadat has been held in Jericho since 2002, for ordering the 2001 assassination of Israeli Tourism Minister Rehavam Zeevi. Saadat was elected to the Palestinian legislature in January.

Israel was also demanding the surrender of four other members of the PFLP, including the gunman who killed Zeevi, and Fuad Shobaki, the alleged mastermind of an illegal weapons shipment to the Palestinian Authority several years ago.

Zeevi’s son, Palmach, told Israel’s Channel 10 TV that the raid was “an extraordinary and very important decision” by the government of acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who is running for prime minister at the head of the new, centrist Kadima Party.

The six men were being held at the jail under the supervision of British and American wardens in accordance with a deal worked out between US President George Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in April 2002.

The agreement allowed the prisoners to be transferred from Yasser Arafat’s besieged compound in the West Bank city of Ramallah, where they were holed up during Israel’s operation Defensive Shield in April 2002.

Israeli hard-liners chafed at the deal, believing it allowed an assassin to escape justice, and Palestinians disliked having to jail a popular militant leader.

Israeli political analyst Yossi Alpher said the upcoming Israeli elections were one of the reasons behind the raid, but the main catalyst was concern that Hamas would free Saadat. Soon after the election Hamas political chief Khaled Mashaal said the group planned to release Saadat.

On March 7, Abbas said he was willing to release Saadat, but only if the PFLP accepted responsibility for his fate.

The next day, the British and American governments sent a joint letter to Abbas – and gave a copy to Israel – presenting a long list of Palestinian violations of the agreement, including provisions about visitors, telephone access and cell searches.

The letter, which also expressed concerns about Hamas’ rise to power, said the Britons and Americans would pull out of the prison if the violations did not end and adequate security measures for the monitors were not put in place.

British officials said they had been in contact with the Palestinians four times since Friday to convey the same message.

With the request ignored, the observers were pulled out of the prison this morning, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said in a statement to parliament. “Ultimately, the safety of our personnel has to take precedence,” he said.

US Embassy spokesman Stewart Tuttle did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

Israel’s Channel Two television reported that Israeli troops had been waiting outside Jericho for days anticipating the monitors’ withdrawal and swooped down on the prison 20 minutes after the foreign monitors left.

The army said the withdrawal of the monitors represented a violation of the agreement, sparking its raid.

Abbas lashed out at the Americans and the British, saying they violated the agreement by withdrawing the monitors without telling him. He said he would hold them responsible if anything happens to the prisoners.

“The authority denounces this aggression and calls on the Israeli government to withdraw immediately from Jericho and to stop all the military acts, and it calls on the American and British observers to return immediately,” he said in a statement.

Abbas also called on Palestinians to refrain from attacks on foreigners, but the raid cause an unprecedented spasm of violence against foreigners across the Palestinian areas.

In Gaza City, about 300 demonstrators, including dozens of gunmen, broke into the European Commission building and raised the PFLP flag on the roof. They also torched the British council offices and burned the cars of people who work there. Police protecting that building left after a brief shootout with the gunmen.

Gunmen also briefly stormed the offices of AMIDEAST, a private organisation that provides English classes and testing services. Some of the protesters chanted: “death to the Americans, death to the British.”

In a series of raids, gunmen kidnapped two South Korean and a French journalist from an upscale Gaza hotel, a Swiss Red Cross worker in Khan Younis.

Two French aid workers were also kidnapped in Gaza and two Australian teachers at the American school in Gaza were briefly abducted and then freed.

An American who taught English at the American University in the West Bank town of Jenin was also kidnapped, university officials said.

Foreigners in Gaza took refuge at an office of the Palestinian security services, security officials said.

Frightened foreigners took refuge at Palestinian security headquarters in Gaza City, and were escorted out of Gaza in police convoys.

The PFLP issued a statement warning that it would target Britons and Americans if Saadat or the other prisoners are hurt. “Any attempt to harm our comrades will make all British and Americans a target by our cells.”

In Jenin, two dozen Palestinian gunmen fired in the air. Their leader, Zakariya Zubeydi from the Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, said he and his followers would now target American and British citizens.

Incoming Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, a Hamas leader, called the raid “a dangerous escalation against the Palestinian leaders and freedom fighters.”

Saadat’s lawyer, Daniel Machover, appealed for Britain to pressure Israel to end the raid.

“We want to prevent an unconvicted and uncharged individual from being killed. It can’t be right that the Israelis should go around killing people without putting them on trial,” he said.