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Gunmen rampaged in gaza shooting eu buildings { March 15 2006 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2006/03/15/israel_raids_prison_takes_6_militants/http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2006/03/15/israel_raids_prison_takes_6_militants/
Israel raids prison, takes 6 militants
Palestinians lash back for 'provocation'
By Thanassis Cambanis, Globe Staff | March 15, 2006
JERICHO, West Bank -- Israeli forces stormed a Palestinian prison yesterday, capturing six radical militants and provoking a wave of retaliatory attacks and hostage-takings in the first major security crisis since Hamas won Palestinian elections.
Tanks and bulldozers surrounded the Jericho prison shortly after 9 a.m. just minutes after a team of US and British advisers walked away from their posts as monitors at the prison, saying that Palestinian officials had failed to provide adequate security under a complex international agreement.
Israel's government, just two weeks away from elections, laid siege to the Jericho prison for nine hours, lobbing shells and demolishing parts of the complex with bulldozers until the wanted men inside surrendered shortly after nightfall.
An adviser to Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said the strike on the prison showed the governing Kadima party was tough on security.
The Israeli raid in Jericho prompted violent protests and unrest throughout the Palestinian territories.
Gunmen rampaged in Gaza, shooting at American, European Union, and British buildings, kidnapping foreigners, and prompting the United Nations, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and the EU to evacuate foreign officials, including those who monitor border crossings.
''I cannot begin to understand why Israel would want all-out war. Today's military assault would seem to suggest that intent," Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said, calling the raid a ''massive provocation."
The raid and ensuing chaos appeared to galvanize the Palestinian leadership, and especially those who have criticized Israel for adopting a unilateral course and refusing negotiations.
For Olmert, the prison raid provided the first major security test since Hamas won Palestinian parliamentary elections in January. A showdown over the most prominent prisoner, Ahmed Saadat, leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, had been brewing for some time.
Along with five other high-value detainees, Saadat had been held in a Palestinian prison in Jericho -- rather than in an Israeli jail -- for the last four years. The unusual arrangement came about from efforts in 2002 to resolve the siege of Yasser Arafat's compound in Ramallah during the deadliest fighting between Israelis and Palestinians in years. The wanted men had been hiding with Arafat, and Israel agreed to let them move to the Palestinian prison in Jericho so long as British and American officials monitored their detention.
After the January elections, Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal declared that a Hamas government would free Saadat -- going a step further than Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who had already angered Israel by saying he would consider releasing the militant, considered the mastermind of the 2001 assassination of Israel's tourism minister, Rehavam Ze'evi.
British monitors who were on duty at the prison left their posts yesterday morning around 9 a.m.
The United States and Britain had said in a March 8 letter to Abbas that they would withdraw the monitors unless the Palestinian Authority offered them adequate protection and began to enforce the agreement governing the Jericho detainees, who were given unfettered phone use and visits that were formally barred under the agreement.
The election of Hamas, which has repeatedly called for the release of the detainees, ''calls into question the political sustainability of the monitoring mission," the letter said.
Israeli officials said they had no advance warning that the monitors would withdraw, but Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said they were on ''high alert" because of the Palestinian proposals to free the men.
Micaela Schweitzer-Bluhm, a spokeswoman for the US consulate in Jerusalem, said the pullout of US and British guards was not coordinated in advance with Israelis or the Palestinians.
She said the United States and Britain had been concerned for the guards' safety ''over several months" and had warned the Palestinian Authority in January and again in March that if security at the prison did not improve, they would pull out.
Minutes after the guards left, Israeli troops surrounded the prison, and Israel rejected any arrangement that depended on Palestinian officials to guarantee the six men's captivity.
Televisions across the Arab world were tuned to the standoff. Sadaat called in live to Al-Jazeera satellite television, declaring: ''Our choice is to fight or to die. We will not surrender."
Explosions and gunfire punctuated the afternoon, sending black clouds into the dusty sky of Jericho.
Enraged Palestinian militants, blaming the United States and Britain for the standoff, kidnapped at least seven foreigners in the West Bank and Gaza, later releasing two Australians and an American. The American was identified as Douglas Johnson, an English professor at the American University in the West Bank town of Jenin.
Israeli officials said they had no choice but to act to prevent the Palestinians from freeing the militant cell that assassinated an Israeli Cabinet minister.
''We couldn't take the risk of letting the Palestinian Authority have complete control over these terrorists," Israeli Defense Forces Captain Yishai David told reporters near the siege yesterday afternoon.
Kadima has faced criticism from the right that it won't be tough enough on Palestinians. Yesterday's response appeared tailored to defuse such political attacks.
''This government was strong on security before, it's strong on security now," Lior Chorev, Kadima's campaign manager, said as the siege unfolded, describing it as proof that his party would not bend to Palestinian demands. ''People today have seen what's going on today, as we speak, in Jericho, as a sign of the way this government is heading."
As the afternoon wore on, more than 170 Palestinian prisoners and police left the compound in their underwear, to show they were not armed, leaving only a core group of detainees and members of the Palestinian security forces who stayed with them in solidarity. Near nightfall, those holdouts also surrendered.
Israeli military officials said throughout the day that they were determined to avoid a replay of the emblematic sieges of Arafat's Ramallah compound and of the historic church in Bethlehem in 2002, two standoffs that proved both deadly for Palestinians and costly for Israel.
More important, Israeli officials said, was the political message delivered to Palestinians who wanted to release the prisoners.
''We wanted to send a clear message that this incoming Palestinian leadership cannot unilaterally abrogate signed agreements," said Regev, the foreign ministry spokesman. ''Our action was responsive, and designed to maintain the status quo, and to keep these killers under lock and key."
Hamas has said it will not honor prior treaties between the Palestinian Authority and Israel, which are the cornerstone of current security arrangements.
Israel took custody last night of Sadaat and four other men connected to the killing of Ze'evi, a right-wing politician whose hard-line approach to Palestinians earned him the affectionate but ironic nickname ''Gandhi."
They also arrested Fuad Shobaki, the Palestinian official held responsible for financing an arms shipment intercepted by Israel.
Hamas leader Mashaal alluded to further violence with a promise of unspecified ''consequences" for Israel, while the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine vowed revenge against Israel after Saadat, who was elected to the Palestinian legislature in January, gave himself up.
Incoming Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, a Hamas leader, told the Associated Press that the raid was ''a dangerous escalation against the Palestinian leaders and freedom fighters."
Anne Barnard of the Globe staff contributed to this report from Jerusalem.
© Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
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