Breaking news from Israel

Kidnappings, attacks blitz Gaza over Jericho raid

Abbas urges Palestinians to refrain from attacking foreign, EU interests in Palestinian territories.

By Sakher Abu El Oun and Adel Zaanoun - GAZA CITY

A blitz of foreign kidnappings and furious attacks on Western interests erupted in the Palestinian territories on Tuesday while Israeli troops stormed a West Bank prison deserted by British monitors.

Nine people were kidnapped in the Gaza Strip as the massive Israeli raid got underway in the oasis town of Jericho to arrest Palestinian militants wanted for the 2001 assassination of an Israeli minister.

The abductions followed hot on the heels of warnings from militants for all British and US nationals to quit the West Bank and Gaza Strip "immediately", while Britain also advised against all travel to the territories.

Palestinian Authority president Mahmud Abbas, currently on a tour of key European capitals, appealed for calm and urged Palestinians to refrain from attacking foreign and EU interests in the Palestinian territories.

It was the worst day of foreign abductions in the increasingly chaotic and hostage-prone Gaza Strip since Israel withdrew its troops and settlers from the territory last September, following a 38-year occupation.

An American teacher of English at the Arab American University in the northern West Bank town of Jenin was also snatched by militants, but there was no immediate confirmation from the US authorities.

"We call on all British and US nationals to leave the Palestinian territories immediately on pain of unprecedented consequences," the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades warned earlier in Gaza City.

With the rampant insecurity increasingly threatening to escalate out of control, Palestinian police shot dead a militant from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and wounded seven others in the Gaza Strip

Yasser Abu Rihan, 30, died and four militants were wounded in clashes with police acting on new live fire orders in response to clashes, medics said.

The other three militants were wounded in a firefight close to the Jordanian embassy, the sources said.

Two French women doctors, a Swiss man who headed the Red Cross mission in the depressed town of Khan Yunis and four other foreigners were grabbed at gunpoint from a luxury hotel were snatched in the Gaza Strip.

"We want the Israeli forces to withdraw from the Jericho area and we ask the French government to intervene to protect Ahmed Saadat," said a spokesman for the Che Guevara Brigades, which is close to the PFLP.

PFLP leader Ahmed Saadat who was detained under Anglo-US supervision for the 2001 murder of far-right Israeli tourism minister Rehavam Zeevi and five other militants were the focus of the Israeli assault.

Two Australian nationals were also briefly kidnapped in the Gaza Strip. PFLP militants also snatched a US citizen for minutes in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanun before Palestinian security forces recovered the man.

Hundreds of furious Palestinians mobbed the British cultural centre in Gaza City and set fire to the building after an angry protest in which gunmen pumped a volley of bullets into the air.

Protestors also swarmed into the British consulate in Gaza City, while other furious Palestinians attacked the British Council office and a branch of the HSBC bank in the West Bank town of Ramallah.

The British Council said its centre in Gaza City was "very badly damaged" after a mob gutted its ground and second floors by fire.

"Mid-morning Gaza time a group of masked gunmen came into the building and started firing shots in our information centre," Sir David Green, the director general of the British Council, told BBC radio.

Palestinian gunmen also barged into an American office used to teach English in Gaza City and smashed up furniture and warned US nationals against visiting Gaza, the witnesses said.

Abbas, who has failed to deliver on repeated promises to end the security chaos dogging the territories, could only urge restraint from a European tour.

"President Abbas calls on all Palestinian people not to turn the protest against the Israeli attack on the Jericho prison into violent action against cultural centres of the European Union or any other country," a statement said.

Several hundreds more demonstrated in the volatile southern West Bank city of Hebron in support of the Palestinians holed up in the Jericho prison.

In the West Bank town of Bethlehem, hundreds of schoolchildren left their classes to demonstrate.

The imprisoned Palestinian leader, Ahmed Sa'adat, and other men sought by Israel surrendered to Israeli troops Tuesday after a siege lasting several hours.

Sa'adat and several of his followers reportedly emerged from the Palestinian prison in Jericho in the West Bank with their hands up, Israeli media reported.

A spokesman for the Israeli defence forces, told reporters however, that the army's operation in Jericho was ongoing.

Sa'adat and several men are wanted in connection with the murder of Israeli Tourism Minister Rehavim Ze'evi in 2001.

A large Israeli force entered Jericho Tuesday morning to seize militants held in the jail for killing the Israeli minister. The incursion sparked a tense standoff with Palestinians in the oasis city and resulted in a wave of kidnappings in the Gaza Strip.

Witnesses and Palestinian officials reported that at least two Palestinians, including a policeman and a militant, were killed, and six wounded when the large Israeli force stormed the prison.

The Israeli army has said the prison was almost completely destroyed in the raid. It also said it was still trying to confirm that the six men it sought in connection with Ze'evi's death were among the 200 prisoners seized from the prison.

As the violence escalated Tuesday helicopters flew over the prison and tanks lobbed shells at it, while from time to time Palestinians attempted to throw Molotov cocktails and makeshift bombs at the soldiers.

Army bulldozers were also brought in to knock down the walls of the jail, edging closer to the militants inside.

Some 170 of the 200 prisoners held in the jail surrendered to the Israelis early on and were taken for interrogation.

But the target of the raid, Ahmed Sa'adat, leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), initially refused to surrender to the Israeli troops who were surrounding the jail.

Sa'adat and four other PFLP members, as well as Faud Shoubaki, a Palestinian leader accused of smuggling weapons to the Palestinian areas, were being held at the Jericho jail, guarded by British and American warders, for their role in the 2001 assassination.

They have been incarcerated in Jericho since 2002 under an agreement reached between Israel and the Palestinian Authority which ended a one-month-long Israeli military siege of the headquarters of the late Palestinian president Yasser Arafat in Ramallah.

Retaliating for Tuesday's raid, PFLP activists in the Gaza Strip and West Bank kidnapped 12 foreign nationals, set alight the British Cultural Centre in Gaza City, and attacked a closed representative building for the European Union. There were also reports of United Nations convoys being fired on in the Strip.

Palestinian security officials and eyewitnesses said the 12 were kidnapped in five incidents. A sixth kidnap attempt failed, they said.

Two Americans and two Australians were taken from the American school in Gaza City and two French women, members of the human rights group Medecins du Monde (Doctors of the World), were abducted near the village of Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza Strip.

A Swiss national, the head of the local Red Cross office, was kidnapped in the southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis, and two Korean and two French journalists were hauled from the al-Deera Hotel on the Gaza City beachfront.

Palestinian officials said an American citizen was also kidnapped in Jenin by PFLP militants.

The kidnappings were also a protest at the withdrawal of the joint British-American force that was entrusted with supervising the imprisonment of Saadat, Shoubaki and the others. According to Palestinian security sources, the monitors left the prison 15 minutes before the Israel military operation began.

In a briefing after the raid, the Israeli army told reporters that it had not consulted with the British and American troops before storming the prison.

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw defended his decision to pull out British monitors, telling parliament in London on Tuesday that the security risks were 'unacceptable.'

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, in Vienna for a meeting with European Union officials, condemned the Israeli raid, accusing Israel of violating the terms of the 2002 agreement and warning against the harming of Sa'adat and the other prisoners.

He said he held both the United States and Britain responsible for the outcome of the raid because they withdrew their security forces shortly before the military operation.

A statement issued by his office said that the decision by the US and British warders to leave their posts was a 'grave violation' of the agreement reached in 2002.

Israeli Public Security Minister Gideon Ezra told Israel Radio that once it became clear the warders had left their posts, Israel had no option but to try nab the PFLP men, lest they be released by the incoming Palestinian government headed by the Islamic militant Hamas movement.

An Israeli Army statement said Israel 'decided to take action only when the Palestinian Authority violated its side of the agreement and the terrorists were no longer under the supervision of the American and British inspectors as specified in the agreements.'

The Israel Defence Force, said the statement, 'will act with all means necessary in order to prevent the release of the murderers of Rehavam Zeevi.'

Israel received advance word from the United States that foreign monitors were preparing to withdraw from a West Bank prison which Israeli forces raided on Tuesday to seize Palestinian militants, U.S. officials said.

Militants and the Arab League have accused the United States and Britain of colluding with Israel by withdrawing the monitors from the Jericho prison to clear the way for the capture of Ahmed Saadat and five other militants jailed there.

The United States said it was not part of any plot. But U.S. officials told Reuters Washington had given Israel a copy of a March 8 letter it sent to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas saying monitors could be withdrawn at once unless security conditions were met.

Israel launched its surprise raid on the prison minutes after U.S. and British monitors abandoned the building.

A day-long Israeli siege resulted in the capture of Saadat and sparked attacks on U.S. and British buildings by angry Palestinians and several kidnappings of foreigners.

Israeli Major-General Yair Naveh said there had been no coordination with the United States and Britain, but that Israeli forces began preparing for the raid weeks ago, after learning that international monitors planned to leave.

Naveh said Israel conducted observation missions and pre-positioned enough forces in the area to mount the raid at short notice.

In the March 8 letter, a copy of which was obtained by Reuters, the United States and Britain told Abbas that the monitors would be withdrawn "with immediate effect" unless the Palestinian Authority addressed their concerns.

They also expressed concern that Hamas Islamic militants, who won Palestinian elections in January, would free Saadat and the other prisoners after forming a new government. Abbas had also said publicly he would be prepared to free Saadat.

"The pending handover of governmental power to a political party that has repeatedly called for the release of the Jericho detainees also calls into question the political sustainability of the monitoring mission," the letter said.

Saadat was the leader of a Palestinian faction accused of killing an Israeli cabinet minister in 2001.

He was jailed in Jericho in 2002 under a U.S.-brokered deal between Israel and the Palestinian Authority that called for the United States and British to monitor them.

Gathered a little background information, while trying to educate myself.

These are excerpts from web pages. Please follow the link to get the context of the excerpt. For a look at the history of these events see this site.
 http://www.mideastweb.org/briefhistory.htm

1) THE 2002 AGREEMENT

 http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,708509,00.html

Among the Palestinian demands agreed to yesterday was a letter of guarantee from the British and US governments assuring that the six prisoners will never be handed over to the Israeli government, and security guarantees for the men during the transfer.

 http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/news/2002/04/mil-020429-usia02.htm

29 April 2002
Bush Pleased with Agreement to End Siege of Arafat Headquarters
(White House report: Press Secretary Ari Fleischer briefed) (480)
BUSH PLEASED WITH AGREEMENT TO END SIEGE OF ARAFAT HEADQUARTERS
President Bush is pleased with steps taken over the weekend to end the
Israeli siege of the headquarters in Ramallah of Palestinian Authority
Chairman Yasser Arafat, White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer told
reporters April 29.
Israel and Arafat over the weekend agreed to a U.S. plan for ending
the siege. The plan calls for the transfer to British and U.S. control
of Palestinian prisoners suspected of involvement in the killing last
October of Israel's tourism minister, a pullback of Israel's tanks,
and freedom for Arafat to travel.

3) Current media reports

I've re-arranged the order of these passages to show the contrast, but please to get a feel for how these events are portrayed look at the article itself.

 http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1731124,00.html

>The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, cut short a trip to Europe because of the crisis, and accused Britain and the US of violating agreements by withdrawing the monitors without informing him.
>The Israeli military then attacked the jail, saying it wanted to prevent a Hamas government from carrying out a pledge to release the wanted men.
Israeli forces hit Jericho prison with tank shells and missiles fired from helicopters before smashing through its walls with armoured bulldozers. A policeman and a prisoner were killed in the assault.

4) House of commons record (do a text search for Ramallah agreement)

Again these are excerpts.

First the given reason;

Mr Straw: House will recall that they arrived in Jericho under the Ramallah agreement in 2002, which helped to bring about the end of the siege of President Arafat's compound.
The Ramallah agreement set out clear conditions under which the six Palestinian prisoners would be held. The 14 British and American monitors were there to monitor those conditions, not to detain or protect the prisoners. Regrettably, the Palestinian Authority have never in the past four years met all their obligations under the Ramallah agreement, despite our repeated demands that they do so.
Our monitors faced an increasing threat to their safety. I considered—on advice from officials and security experts—withdrawing them last year, but I judged that, on balance, the risk was just acceptable to allow them to stay. In the light of recent reports, however, I decided that their position was no longer tenable and the security risks were unacceptable. The safety of the British monitors had to be my overriding concern. In my original statement to the House of 29 April 2002, I set out the fact that that was our overriding concern, but also the principal responsibility of the Palestinian Authority.

Now the argument:

Mr Straw: What we required of the Palestinian Authority was very straightforward—that they kept to the detailed conditions of the operational procedures for the Authority, as agreed in an annexe to the Ramallah agreement. That agreement included no use of mobile telephones, but they were used. Mr. Sa'adat, the leader of the Palestinians who stood in the Palestinian election, ran an election campaign from his cell with his telephone. There were supposed to be restrictions on visitors—they were ineffective—and on correspondence. Moreover, conditions for the monitors became so difficult that they could not carry out cell searches. A fundamental part of the Ramallah agreement was that the six prisoners in question should be kept separate from all other prisoners. However, the monitors were unable to be within the prison; instead, they had to stay on the roof, making effective monitoring increasingly difficult. That was the fundamental problem and putting it right could have been very straightforward—simply by following the Ramallah agreement. I regret that the Palestinian Authority did not have it within them to do so.

Mr. Peter Kilfoyle (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab): As the Foreign Secretary said, these are accused, not convicted, men. However, can he give unequivocal confirmation that there was no collusion with the Israelis on the timing of the withdrawal of the monitors, and will he condemn what I can only describe as state-sponsored terrorism, involving attacking a prison with tanks and rockets?

Mr. Straw: I can absolutely give that undertaking to my hon. Friend—there was indeed no collusion. (shortened)

Unfortunatly I can't find the text of the Ramallah agreement.

If you read the House of Commons Hansard Debates for 14 Mar 2006 (pt 5) you cannot fail to notice that Jack straw knew there would be a violent backlash. Notifying the British consulate ect. I think you would be a fool to imagine that they did not have a good idea about what Israel's actions would be. Not one word of condemnation of Israel's action by our government.