Israel Raids West Bank Prison to Take Inmates Held in Killing

Gee, is there an election coming up?

March 14 (Bloomberg) -- One Palestinian was killed and four wounded as Israeli soldiers raided a prison in the West Bank town of Jericho in an operation to take to Israeli jails five inmates who assassinated an Israeli tourism minister.

Three hours after the raid began at about 9:00 a.m. local time, Israeli soldiers were still facing Palestinian guards in the prison's courtyard and hadn't entered the cells, whose inmates include five people convicted in the 2001 killing of Tourism Minister Rehavam Ze'evi, the Israel Defense Forces and witnesses said. Some prisoners surrended to the Israeli force, the Associated Press reported, citing witnesses.

``They are calling on all of us to come out from the cells and hand ourselves over to the Israeli army,'' Majd al-Rimawi, a prisoner, said on Palestinian television. ``The American and British guards who are guarding the prison left shortly before the Israeli army raided Jericho.''

The raid came after Ehud Olmert, Israel's acting prime minister, promised earlier this month to crack down with an ``iron fist'' on what he termed growing Palestinian violence as Hamas, the Islamic movement sworn to Israel's destruction, readies to take over the Palestinian Authority.

Bloomberg

JERUSALEM, March 14 (Reuters) - The United States and Britain withdrew their monitors on Tuesday from a Palestinian prison because of security concerns just before Israel moved in to apprehend a militant leader held there, U.S. officials said.

The American and British monitors provided supervision at the prison complex in the West Bank city of Jericho which holds Ahmed Saadat, leader of militant group the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), and other militants. Saadat was jailed over the assassination of an Israeli minister.

"The Palestinian Authority has consistently failed to meet its obligations" under an agreement which provided for monitors at the prison, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said in a statement. "Ultimately the safety of our personnel has to take precedence."

The United States and Britain informed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in a March 8 letter that the monitors would be withdrawn because security improvements had not been made, U.S. and British officials said.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L141873435.htm

Troops enter Jericho to arrest killers of minister Rehavam Zeevi, who are held at prison in West Bank city; exchanges of gunfire outside jail compound ensue, two Palestinians killed, nine wounded. IDF bulldozers start to knock down parts of jail. IDF officer tells Ynet 'terrorists can either surrender or die under rubble.' PA announced two weeks ago it would release killers

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3227475,00.html

<snip>

"Israeli security forces entered Jericho on Tuesday morning to arrest the killers of minister Rehavam Zeevi, who are held at a prison in the West Bank city.

The forces proceeded to surround the jail compound where Ahmed Saadat and three other members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine are imprisoned over the assassination of Zeevi.

Yamam (special police counter-terrorism unit) officers took position on the prison’s roof, while additional security forces blocked the roads leading to the prison. Exchanges of fire ensued, and Saadat and his men were called to surrender. Two Palestinians were killed in the clashes and nine others were wounded. No Israelis were hurt in the gunfight.

Saadat said from inside the prison that he does not intend to turn himself in.

IDF bulldozers have started to knock down parts of the jail."

<snip>

"Palestinian prime minister-designate, Ismail Haniyeh, warned Israel against harming the leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, who is besieged by the IDF along with three culprits in the assassination of an Israeli minister in a Jericho jail."

<snip>

"“We warn against any harm to Saadat and we see the Israeli operation as part of the elections in Israel. This is unacceptable to us and the Palestinian people. These operations will not scare the Palestinian people and won’t dictate surrender to the occupiers. We call on all sides to act responsibly to stop this operation in Jericho and prevent further deterioration,” he added."

<snip>

"MK Mohammad Barakeh slammed Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s decision to arrest the killers of minister Zeevi, labeling the decision a political stunt aimed at boosting his popularity ahead of the election.

“The acting prime minister is in distress over the opinion polls and wants to solve the problem through a prisoners’ parade in Jerusalem,” he said.

Arab MK Ahmad Tibi said the government’s decision is an election stunt and described the operation as a blatant breach of Israel’s agreements with the Palestinian Authority."


http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3227609,00.html

Gush Shalom Press release, March 14, 2006
At this moment in Jericho, the main elections gimmick of the Kadima Party and its
leader Ehud Olmert is taking place with hundreds of Israeli soldiers and
Palestinian prisoners drafted to serve as extras. This gimmick, designed to draw
extreme right votes in the March 28 elections, shows Kadima as an adventurist and
irresponsible party in whose hands it is dangerous to entrust the helm of state"
says Gush Shalom (The Israeli Peace Bloc).
In cooperation with the governments of the US and Britain, whose removal of their
observers from the Jericho Prison proves them utterly incapable of any mediation
role between Israelis and Palestinians, PM Olmert and Defence Minister Mofaz are
carrying out a provocation which will only exacerbate the conflict and hatred.
Theirs will be the full responsibility for bloodshed of Israelis and Palestinians,
in the course of the Jericho provocation itself and in the cycle of retaliation
upon retaliation which may follow.
It should be noted that the people which the army was sent to Jericho to capture or
kill are marked out because, when taking revenge for the targeted killing of their
own leader, they did not kill innocent civilians. They selected Rehav'am Ze'evi, a
general turned politician who was the foremost of Israeli racists and who built a
political career upon crude hate propaganda. A targeted killing."

For further details
Adam Keller, Gush Shalom spokesperson +972-(0)3-5565804, +972-(0)506-709603

"It should be noted that the people which the army was sent to Jericho to capture or
kill are marked out because, when taking revenge for the targeted killing of their
own leader, they did not kill innocent civilians. They selected Rehav'am Ze'evi, a
general turned politician who was the foremost of Israeli racists and who built a
political career upon crude hate propaganda. A targeted killing."

Like peas in a pod. Tit for tat.

Straw condemns 'appalling' violence
Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has condemned the "appalling acts of violence" which have seen the British Council set ablaze in Gaza City and reports of kidnaps of foreign nationals.

He told MPs Britain had withdrawn its monitors from a prison in Jericho, later occupied by Israeli forces, only because the Palestinian Authority had never met its obligations to protect them.

The withdrawal from Jericho was the trigger for Palestinian attacks on British and other foreign targets in Gaza City and along the Gaza Strip.

In answer to a specially scheduled Commons question Mr Straw told MPs: "I must emphasise the Government's condemnation of the appalling acts of violence. They are totally unwarranted."
snip
http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=384462006

Jericho Drama ends: Six murderers of former Tourism Minister Zeevi turn themselves in after nine-hour IDF siege; troops surrounded jail earlier Tuesday, three Palestinians killed in operation

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3227702,00.html

<snip>

"Popular Front Secretary General Ahmad Saadat and five other terrorists involved in the murder of former Tourism Minister Rehavam Zeevi turned themselves in Tuesday evening following a nine-hour IDF siege.

Saadat and his men left the prison with their hands up and were handed over to IDF soldiers along with other detainees.

According to Palestinian reports, the prisoners surrendered as part of an international agreement whose details are unknown at this time."

This stuff is mind boggling. An occupying force can have target assassinations, breakin to prisons where prisoners, some of whom have not even had a trial yet, are defenseless and take them out of prision to kill them? The world sits by as the inhumanity and terrorism of Israel continues and oks their state policy of target assassinations and decries the Palestinians when they fight to take their land back to retaliate against the terror upon them.

I know, the flames will come, but how can people who call themselves humans sleep at night with this injustice? How can we not see the double standards being applied in the I/P situtation? What will it take? An act of God no less.

Suppose a foreign terrorist group assasinated an American President and then fled the country. The country to which they fled refuses to expedite the killer and instead imprisons the killers on its own soil. Then a government is elected that endorses such terrorist acts against the US. We would be marching in the streets demanding the President act to bring the killers to the US to face justice.

Or put another way, let's say Osama is captured in Pakistan. Would you be happy if he were imprisoned there and not brought to justice in the US?

We can debate the actions of the Bush Administration or the Israeli government or the Blair government. But I would hope people in DU wouldn't somehow say that its okay to kill government officials.

The abuse of history/logic/language really was a 1st class job.
Nice framing, as well, I see.

Here's some facty, rather than truthy, reporting;

'Wednesday, 17 October, 2001, 10:26 GMT 11:26 UK
Israeli minister shot dead

Israel's hard-line Tourism Minister, Rehavam Zeevi, has been shot dead by gunmen in a Jerusalem hotel.

Mr Zeevi died in hospital after being shot three times in the head and throat inside Jerusalem's Hyatt Hotel.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) has said it carried out the assassination in revenge for the killing of its leader Abu Ali Mustafa, by Israeli forces in August.

>snip

The Palestinian Authority has condemned the killing, but urged Israel to halt its policy of killing Palestinians.

"We feel sorry about this assassination. We reject all forms of political assassinations. We want to put an end to this vicious cycle of killing," Cabinet Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo said.

Revenge

The radical PFLP group has claimed responsibility for trying to kill Mr Zeevi saying, "we vowed to avenge the killing of leader Abu Ali Mustafa and we fulfilled our promise."

Abu Ali Mustafa was killed by Israeli forces in August.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/1603862.stm

____________________________________

Obituary: Rehavam Zeevi

Rehavam Ze'evi was a highly controversial politician, even by the standards of Israel where the politics is controversial by its very nature.

He was known as one of the most hardline politicians in the country - an advocate of deporting Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza to Arab countries.

His assassination came on the very day he was due to leave the cabinet, after tendering his resignation as tourism minister two days earlier.

Typically, it was not an issue involving tourism - about which he rarely spoke - which triggered the resignation, but over his brand of hardline, ultra-nationalist policies towards Palestinians in the occupied territories.

Along with ally Avigdor Lieberman of Israel Beitenu, he resigned in protest at Israel's withdrawal from parts of Hebron and plans to reduce a blockade against Palestinians.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/1603857.stm

____________________________

Sharon 's 'guard dog' bares his teeth

Minister in new cabinet wants all Palestinians expelled

Suzanne Goldenberg in Jerusalem
Wednesday March 7, 2001
The Guardian

Rechavam Ze'evi, who takes his place in Ariel Sharon 's cabinet today, looked out of his office in the parliament building on to a glorious view of the hills coming alive with spring - and saw Arab armies at the gate.

"You can't defend Jerusalem from the hills. If a war was to start on the initiation of the Arabs, in three hours we would have to fight right here in the knesset," he said. "In four hours we would have to fight in Tel Aviv."

Mr Ze'evi's elevation to the cabinet has caused shivers in Israel. The former major-general, who is 74, wants the 3m Palestinians expelled from the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

He considers Jordan part of Israel's birthright, and thinks that Israel's 1m Arab citizens should not be allowed to vote, because they do not serve in the army. The incoming tourist minister, he believes visitors to Israel must speak Hebrew.

Mr Sharon told the knesset yesterday that he had formed a coalition and was ready to be sworn in today.

Labour doves say Mr Ze'evi's membership of the coalition is a "nightmare", and that Shimon Peres dirtied his Nobel peace prize by agreeing to serve in the same government.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/fromthearchive/story/0,,1680917,00.html

______________________________

Far-right leader who fell victim to his own ideas

Minister fought for strategy of assassination

Suzanne Goldenberg in Jerusalem
Thursday October 18, 2001
The Guardian

An ardent supporter of Israel's strategy of assassination, the far-right leader Rehavam Zeevi yesterday became the first Israeli politician felled by a Palestinian assassin since the Jewish state was created in 1948.

"It's not murder to get rid of potential terrorists, or those who have blood on their hands," Zeevi told the Guardian in an interview in March, a few days before he joined the national unity government of Ariel Sharon as tourism minister. "Each one eliminated is one less terrorist for us to fight."

Yesterday, that strategy led to Zeevi's own death. In their claim of responsibility, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a Marxist group opposed to the Oslo peace accords, said they killed the ultra-nationalist to avenge the assassination of their chief, Mustafa Ali Zibri, killed by two Israeli guided missiles while at his desk in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

For Israelis and Palestinians alike, Zeevi - universally known as Gandhi - was the icon of the extreme right, the loudest advocate for the ethnic cleansing of 3m Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza, a policy known as "transfer".

"The Arabs living in the West Bank and Gaza have to be transferred to their forefathers' land," he said last March. It was wrong to see this as cruel, he said. "I don't want to transfer them to live in igloos with the Eskimos. I want to send them back to live with their brothers."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,576142,00.html

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/cartoons/0,,337484,00.html

· UK and US told what to expect if they pulled out
· Angry Palestinians allege collusion in 'crime'

Chris McGreal in Jerusalem
Thursday March 16, 2006
The Guardian

Days before Israel's military assault on Jericho prison it warned Britain and America that it would seize Palestinians held there under an international agreement for killing an Israeli cabinet minister if the two countries withdrew their monitors.

Dov Weisglass, the most influential of the Israeli prime minister's advisers, told Britain and the US last week that it would be better for international supervision at the prison to continue. But he said that if they carried through a threat to pull out British and American monitors because of "security concerns" then Israel would act to bring the wanted men to justice.

The last of 11 foreigners kidnapped by Palestinian groups in response to Israel's destruction of the prison with tanks, bulldozers and missiles were released yesterday as relative calm returned to the occupied territories.

But there remained anger and suspicion among ordinary Palestinians and their leaders that Britain colluded in the Israeli attack to seize Ahmed Saadat, accused of masterminding the 2001 assassination of Israel's tourism minister Rehavam Zeevi in a Jerusalem hotel, and five other Palestinians held in the Jericho jail under international supervision.

British sources said yesterday the monitors were withdrawn after a "specific and credible threat" earlier this year against their lives. The sources said it was the most serious of concerns that included fears of roadside bombs, kidnappings and being caught up in a riot inside the jail.

>snip

Timeline

· March 8
US/UK write to Palestinian leader saying they will withdraw monitors unless concerns are addressed.

· March 9
Israel says it wants monitors to stay but if withdrawn it will capture men wanted for killing Israeli minister. UK and US tell Israel monitors will withdraw, but do not specify time.

· Weekend
British consul calls Palestinian leader four times seeking commitment to act on the UK and US warning.

· Tuesday
UK monitors pull out of Jericho jail without telling Palestinians. Minutes later Israeli troops move in.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1731814,00.html

they werent even truly jailed. they had internet, phone and full visiting privledges. the only thing they couldnt do was leave the compound. they were in "protective custody" not in jail. including a leader of a terror group.

BEIRUT: Thousands of Lebanese troops and police mobilised on Thursday to block an unauthorised demonstration outside the US Embassy aimed at protesting “American-British collusion” with Israel over the Jericho prison raid. Several thousand troops in armoured vehicles and police in trucks deployed to major roads north and south of Beirut, setting up checkpoints to search cars for weapons and check identification of passengers, security officials said. Traffic began to back up for miles on the coastal highway, according to witnesses. Similar measures were taken in southern Lebanon, with witnesses reporting troops blocking roads leading out of Palestinian refugee camps in the port city of Sidon to prevent protesters from heading to Beirut. Two of the organisers were detained by police. The demonstration was called by the Arab Organisation for Defending Detainees and other groups to protest Jericho’s prison raid. AP

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2006\03\17\story_17-3-2006_pg4_8