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Israel seizes Jailed Palestinian militants
(AP)
Updated: 2006-03-15 09:49
Israeli troops using tanks, helicopters and bulldozers pounded a
Palestinian-run prison in the West Bank on Tuesday to seize a Palestinian
militant leader and his accomplices in the assassination of an Israeli Cabinet
minister.
Palestinian
prisoners stand in their underwear as an Israeli tank takes a position
outisde the prison during an army raid in the West Bank town of Jericho,
Tuesday, March 14, 2006. Israeli forces backed by bulldozers and tanks
laid siege to a prison in the West Bank town of Jericho on Tuesday,
pulling out scores of prisoners and guards and destroying much of the
building before capturing a group of prisoners linked to the assassination
of an Israeli Cabinet minister. [AP] |
The
dramatic 10-hour standoff ignited an unprecedented spasm of violence against
foreigners across the Palestinian areas. Aid workers, teachers and journalists
took refuge at Palestinian security headquarters in Gaza as militants attacked
offices linked to the US and Europe, burning cars and torching the British
Council building in Gaza City.
Gunmen kidnapped at least 10 foreigners, including an American professor who
was held at an abandoned cemetery; after nightfall, three were still in
captivity 錕斤拷 two French citizens and a South Korean journalist.
It was the most widespread violence since Hamas militants swept Palestinian
parliamentary elections Jan. 25 錕斤拷 and could foreshadow broader confrontations
between Israel and the Palestinians.
Angry Palestinians blamed the British and Americans for the raid: British
monitors left the jail 20 minutes before the Israelis arrived Tuesday morning,
citing concerns for their own safety. Three Palestinians were killed in the
assault.
Israel denied coordinating the attack with the US or Britain. It said recent
statements by Palestinian officials and Hamas leaders of plans to release its
most-wanted prisoners, combined with the withdrawal of the monitors, forced it
to act.
The assault on the jail came amid a breakdown in a 4-year-old deal among the
Palestinians, Israel, the United States and Britain over the guarding of the
prisoners, and it underscored the collapse of relations between Israel and the
Palestinians since Hamas' victory at the polls.
British and American officials said they had complained repeatedly to the
Palestinians about security conditions at the prison and threatened in a letter
last week 錕斤拷 a copy of which was sent to Israel 錕斤拷 to remove their monitoring
teams if things did not improve.
By chance, the US team was not on duty Tuesday, the State Department said.
"The monitors worked on a rotation basis and the Americans did not happen to be
on this morning," said spokesman Tom Casey.
Another State Department spokesman, Adam Ereli, said the United States did
not know of the raid in advance.
But Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, cutting short a European trip to
deal with the crisis, blamed the Americans and the British for violating the
agreement by withdrawing the monitors without telling him.
Incoming Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, a Hamas leader, called the raid "a
dangerous escalation against the Palestinian leaders and freedom fighters."
Other Palestinians condemned the prison siege as a campaign stunt by acting
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert just two weeks before Israeli elections.
Israel was targeting Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine leader
Ahmed Saadat, who ordered the assassination of Israeli Tourism Minister Rehavam
Zeevi in 2001, and several other militants accused of carrying out the killing.
Saadat was elected to the Palestinian legislature in January.
"There were clear indications these killers would be set free," said Israeli
Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev. "We had to act to make sure these killers
would stay under lock and key."
The troops smashed down walls with bulldozers and shelled its walls. Dozens
of prisoners and Palestinian police were pulled out of the building in their
underwear and searched and blindfolded by Israeli troops.
The six wanted prisoners, who insisted to Arab media that they would not be
taken alive, were among the last to be taken. The gray-haired Saadat, wearing a
light-colored jacket, left the prison in a line with his peers. He looked down
and did not raise his arms in surrender, as many of the other prisoners had done
throughout the day.
In addition to the five men implicated in Zeevi's murder, Israel also seized
Fuad Shobaki, the mastermind of an illegal weapons shipment to the Palestinian
Authority several years ago, and 15 other militants, said Maj. Gen. Yair Naveh,
the chief of Israel's central command.
Israeli government spokesman Raanan Gissin said the men would be put on
trial.
Zeevi's son, Palmach, said his father "would have said this is the right
thing to do." The Popular Front, or PFLP, has claimed responsibility for the
assassination of his father, who advocated the expulsion of Arabs from Israeli
land.
One policeman standing near the gate was killed in the shootout and a
prisoner was also killed, security officials said. A third Palestinian was
fatally wounded, the army said.
Explosions shook the prison throughout the day as Israeli tanks fired shells
at the walls, and thick smoke filled the sky. Helicopters flew overhead. Youths
in the town threw rocks at the Israeli soldiers and protesters placed burning
tires in the roads.
The six wanted men were being held at the jail under the supervision of
British and American wardens in accordance with a deal worked out between
President Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in April 2002.
Israeli hard-liners chafed at the deal, believing it allowed an assassin to
escape justice; Palestinians disliked having to jail a popular militant leader.
Israeli political analyst Yossi Alpher said the March 28 Israeli elections
were one of the reasons behind the raid, but the main catalyst was concern Hamas
would free Saadat.
Soon after the Palestinian election, Hamas political chief Khaled Mashaal
said the group planned to release him. On March 7, Abbas said he was willing to
release Saadat, but only if the PFLP accepted responsibility for his fate.
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said security conditions at the prison
were so bad that the observers had to work from the roof rather than the inside
of the prison. Guards were allowing prisoners to use mobile phones in violation
of the agreement and failing to enforce rules limiting visitors and phone calls,
he said.
In Washington, the State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the
Palestinians had been repeatedly informed of the U.S. and British concerns about
conditions at the jail.
In New York, the UN Security Council expressed serious concern about the
upsurge in violence and sought the release of the three remaining foreigners.
"Israel's violent incursion 錕斤拷 as well as the Palestinian actions carried out
in response 錕斤拷 risk destabilizing even further the already tense situation in the
Middle East," Ibrahim Gambari, the U.N. undersecretary-general for political
affairs, told the Security Council in an emergency meeting.
About 15,000 Palestinians, led by dozens of gunmen firing in the air, marched
through Gaza City chanting anti-Israeli and anti-American slogans on Tuesday
night.
Earlier, about 300 demonstrators broke into the European Commission building
and raised the PFLP flag on the roof. They also torched the evacuated British
council offices and burned the cars of employees there. Gunmen also briefly
stormed the offices of AMIDEAST, a private organization that provides English
classes and testing services.
In Gaza, gunmen went from room to room in hotels, looking for foreigners. By
mid-afternoon, they had taken a Swiss Red Cross worker, two Australian teachers,
two French medical workers and three journalists 錕斤拷 one French and two South
Korean, Palestinian and foreign officials said. Also kidnapped were a Canadian
aid worker and American professor Douglas Johnson at the American University in
the West Bank town of Jenin.
Johnson, who teaches English, said he was unharmed and understood his
abductors' actions.
"They are angry over what is going on in Jericho. I feel sympathy with them,"
he told an Associated Press reporter at the cemetery.
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