[Mb-civic] Israel raids prison, takes 6 militants - Boston Globe

[William Swiggard]

  Israel raids prison, takes 6 militants


    Palestinians lash back for 'provocation'

By Thanassis Cambanis  |  March 15, 2006  |  The Boston Globe

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."

http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2006/03/15/israel_raids_prison_takes_6_militants/
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.islandlists.com/pipermail/mb-civic/attachments/20060315/dabd2487/attachment.htm