Israelis storm Palestinian prison

Large numbers of Israel Defense Forces soldiers on Tuesday surrounded the prison in the West Bank city of Jericho where five Palestinian militants are jailed over the assassination of minister Rehavam Ze'evi in 2001.

IDF sources said the raid was being carried out in order to transfer the prisoners to an Israeli prison.

The five include Ahmed Saadat, the leader of the Popular Front for Liberation of Palestine, believed to have been the one who ordered the killing of Ze'evi in a Jerusalem hotel.

Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas said last week that he was prepared to free Saadat, drawing an angry response from Israel. Abbas also said last year that he planned to release Saadat, but did not.

Witnesses said that an Israel Air Force helicopter launched a missile at the prison compound Tuesday afternoon.

An IDF colonel told reporters in Jericho that the main aim was to arrest those at the prison. Using a loudspeaker, the troops called on the militants in the jail to come out and surrender themselves.

"The objective is to arrest them, but there are no negotiations. Either they come out or they will be killed," the colonel said.

He said that of 200 people inside, 44 have surrendered so far. He said the main targets of the raid, including those involved in the Ze'evi assassination, have not yet come out.

In a bid to pressure those inside into surrendering, IDF troops used machine-gun fire and tank shells on the prison Tuesday afternoon, and used bulldozers to knock down the walls.

Dozens of prisoners in their underwear have emerged from the prison building, where they were searched and blindfolded by IDF troops. Some of them were taken away. None of them appeared to be the six targeted men.

One of the five PFLP members vowed Tuesday that the group would not surrender.

"Our prison is surrounded on all sides by Israelis. They are asking us over loudspeaker to come out," Ahed Abu Ghoulmi, one of the targeted prisoners, told The Associated Press by telephone. "We will not come out under any circumstances."

"We are not going to surrender. We are going to face our destiny with courage," Saadat later told the Arab satellite channel Al-Jazeera.

The IDF troops were also demanding the surrender of Fuad Shobaki, the alleged mastermind of an illegal weapons shipment to the Palestinian Authority in 2002.

Saadat and the others, also members of the PFLP, have been held in the jail under international supervision since 2002.

Sami Musallam, the governor of Jericho, said Tuesday morning that he had been told Saadat was still in his cell and that IDF troops were trying to snatch him.

The IDF troops exchanged limited fire with Palestinian forces at the jail. A large number of Palestinians gathered outside the prison grounds, some throwing Molotov cocktails and stones at the IDF troops. Army vehicles at the scene also came under fire, but no soldiers were hurt.

A senior Palestinian official said that IDF forces had killed a Palestinian guard in clashes around the prison. A Palestinian security source later said that a Palestinian prisoner had also been killed.

Tawfiq Tirawi, head of Palestinian intelligence in the West Bank, told Reuters that IDF bulldozers were trying to tear down the prison walls.

American and British monitors supervising Saadat's detention left the prison before the arrival of the IDF soldiers.

Abbas later said that the British and American monitors bore "full responsibility" for the raid.

Khaleda Jarar, a PFLP legislator, said she was on the phone to one of the inmates, Ahed Abu Ghoulmi, at the time of the IDF operation.

She said Abu Ghoulmi told her all five PFLP prisoners were in their cells when the troops entered. She said the soldiers called on the prisoners over loudspeakers to come out of their cells, and that the line with Abu Ghoulmi
was cut at that time.

The PFLP has Marxist roots and opposes peace talks with Israel. The group, which was at the forefront of air hijackings in the 1960s and 1970s, is part of Abbas' umbrella Palestine Liberation Organization.

The Israel Prison Service raised its level of alert in prisons containing Palestinian prisoners Tuesday, fearing riots in the wake of the Jericho operation.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/694059.html

Palestinian militants today launched a wave of attacks on British and European targets after an Israeli raid on a prison in Jericho.

Three foreign nationals, including a Swiss Red Cross official, were reported kidnapped and the British Council building in Gaza City was set on fire.

The attacks were in apparent retaliation for the withdrawal of British and US human rights monitors from the jail, which was followed about half an hour later by the Israeli military raid.

The troops entered demanding the surrender of six prisoners inside. A gun battle ensued that left one Palestinian police officer dead.

A prisoner was also killed, but it was not clear whether he was one of those wanted by Israel.

Tank shells were fired at the prison and bulldozers tore down some of the building's walls. Children threw rocks at the Israeli soldiers and burning tyres were put in the roads.

Troops were later heard calling for all the prisoners and guards to come out.

Dozens of inmates and guards emerged and were ordered to strip to their underwear. The wanted men did not appear to be among them.

The raid on the jail, which holds prisoners accused of assassinating an Israeli cabinet minister, was the most high-profile Israeli incursion into a Palestinian town in months, and came just two weeks before Israel holds national elections.

An Israeli colonel said the inmates must either surrender or face death, but stressed that Israel's aim was to arrest them.

British and US observers had been monitoring the prison since 2002, charged with ensuring that the treatment of inmates conformed to internationally accepted human rights standards, a Foreign Office spokesman said.

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1730633,00.html

March 14, 2006 10:31 AM

Al-Jazeera is broadcasting footage of a brutal Israeli raid on a prison in the Palestinian town of Jericho.

In what looks like a pre-election stunt, the Israeli government is trying to seize Ahmed Sadaat, leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), and five of his comrades.

One Palestinian guard is already reported dead and there have been further casualties, according to al-Jazeera.

Sadaat has been held since 2001 under a deal brokered by the late Yasser Arafat. The PFLP claimed responsibility for the killing of the Israeli tourism minister Rehavam Zeevi that year.

Under the deal, Sadaat was to be guarded by US and British forces. Those forces this morning abandoned their posts, citing "security concerns", as the Israeli army approached.

Reports say 50 jeeps and three tanks have stormed into Jericho, while two helicopter gunships circle overhead.

This is not only a major act of aggression by the Israeli state, no doubt emboldened by western governments' unremitting hostility to the newly elected Hamas administration in Palestine. It also represents an unforgivable betrayal by the British government, which has abandoned the prisoners to their fate.

I'm writing today to the foreign secretary, Jack Straw, to demand he tells us why and how the government has allowed this to happen and what forewarning it had from the Israelis.

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/george_galloway/2006/03/israeli_aggression_british_bet.html