Israel raids West Bank prison

By Wafa Amr

JERICHO, West Bank (Reuters) – Israeli forces on Tuesday
raided a West Bank prison to demand the handover of a top
Palestinian militant accused of killing an Israeli minister,
blasting their way in after U.S. and British monitors withdrew.

Palestinian officials said a guard and a prisoner were
killed in clashes at Jericho prison, housing Popular Front for
the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) leader Ahmed Saadat, accused
of involvement in the assassination of an Israeli minister.

Israeli troops demanded that Saadat and five other
militants held in Jericho give themselves up. Soldiers blew up
the outer wall of the prison compound, then brought up
bulldozers.

The violence stoked tension two weeks ahead of an Israeli
general election and as Hamas Islamic militants continued talks
on forming a new Palestinian government following their victory
in a January parliamentary vote.

Israeli police minister Gideon Ezra said the decision to
demand the handover of Saadat and the others was taken because
of reports that they could be released — a possibility raised
by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas last week.

“I am sure they (the prisoners) will be transferred to me
and we will find them a spot,” Ezra said.

The Palestinian Authority condemned the raid and the
withdrawal of the U.S. and British monitors.

U.S. and British officials said the monitors were pulled
out because of the failure of the Palestinians to carry out
security improvements that they had requested.

“We hold the Americans and British responsible for the
safety of Saadat. Their withdrawal is a violation of the
agreement with the Palestinian Authority,” Ahmed Abdel Rahman,
an aide to Abbas.

Hamas warned Israel against harming Saadat or any of the
others and accused acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s
government of “trying to use Palestinian blood to win the
Israeli election.”

FOREIGN MONITORS

Saadat has been held together with other militants since
2002 in a jail in Jericho under international supervision.

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

Israel says Saadat ordered the killing of Tourism Minister
Rehavam Zeevi in 2001. The PFLP claimed responsibility for the
killing and said it was to avenge the death of one of its
leaders.

Israel says that it has the right to bring Saadat to
justice if he is released by the Palestinian Authority.

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

Peacemaking prospects have been dimmed further since the
landslide victory of militant Islamist group Hamas. The
Islamist faction, which is sworn to Israel’s destruction, is
expected to present its government this month.

Olmert has said that after the election Israel could
unilaterally withdraw from some settlements in the West Bank,
land that Palestinians seek for a state.

But visiting the settlement of Ariel at the heart of the
West Bank on Tuesday, Olmert vowed that he would never give it
up and said that any settlers evacuated from smaller outposts
would be brought into major settlement blocs.

(Additional reporting by Wafa Amr)