Raid ignites attacks on foreigners

Militants attacked offices linked to the U.S. and Europe.
JERICHO, West Bank (AP) -- 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.
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 United States 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 -- two French citizens and a South Korean journalist.
It was the most widespread violence since Hamas militants swept Palestinian parliamentary elections Jan. 25 -- and could foreshadow broader confrontations between Israel and the Palestinians.
Pointing the finger
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 United States 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 -- a copy of which was sent to Israel -- to remove their monitoring teams if things did not improve.
By chance, the U.S. 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.
Campaign stunt
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.
Remain in jail
"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 press 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.
Facing trial
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.
Naveh said troops had been waiting for days outside Jericho for the monitors to leave.
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