Prison Raid a Setback for Palestinian President

Palestinians on Wednesday denounced Israel’s seizure of six militants from a jail, a raid that officials and analysts said had undercut the standing of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas at a politically delicate moment.

Israeli commentators, meanwhile, agreed that Tuesday’s raid on the Palestinian jail in Jericho had probably boosted acting Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s political prospects just two weeks before national elections.

In January, Abbas’ once-dominant Fatah movement lost in parliamentary balloting to the Islamic militant group Hamas. Since then, he has sought to persuade Hamas to moderate its stance toward Israel as it prepares a new government.

“It has a damaging effect on the Palestinian Authority in general” and specifically on Abbas, said Ali Jarbawi, a political scientist at Birzeit University in the West Bank city of Ramallah. The raid showed “that the authority is incapable in front of the Palestinian people, incapable of protecting them.”

The operation, which ended with the wanted men surrendering, sparked kidnappings of foreigners in the Gaza Strip. Jarbawi said the raid could hurt Abbas’ efforts to persuade Hamas to honor past agreements with Israel when the group takes power. Hamas is also under pressure from Abbas and the international community to renounce violence and recognize the state of Israel.

Analysts and Palestinian officials said the raid had embarrassed Abbas -- who was already viewed as weak and had borne much of the blame for Fatah’s electoral defeat -- as he struggled to remain relevant in dealing with the Israelis. Abbas has called for a resumption of talks with Israel, for example, whereas leaders such as Olmert are proposing that Israel establish long-term borders on its own. Israeli officials have blamed Abbas for failing to confront militant groups with force.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who was visiting Australia, said today that the United States had been in touch with Israel and the Palestinians to urge restraint.

In the West Bank town of Jenin today, Israeli troops surrounded a house, exchanging fire with four wanted Palestinian militants inside, the army and Palestinian witnesses said. Palestinian gunmen took to the streets, exchanging fire with troops.

Abbas, who cut short a trip to Europe aimed at securing foreign aid for his cash-strapped government, used unusually sharp language Wednesday as he condemned the jail raid. He called the attack “an unforgivable crime” and suggested it had been coordinated with American and British officials. Officials from the two Western nations said Tuesday that their decision to pull monitors out of the prison shortly before the raid was not done in concert with Israel.

“What happened is undoubtedly a crime that cannot be forgiven and an insult aimed at the Palestinian people, and it is a blatant violation of all the agreements between us and them,” Abbas told reporters as he toured the demolished facility. He called on Israel to return the six men to Palestinian custody.

The outgoing Palestinian foreign minister, Nasser Kidwa, took issue with assertions by U.S. and British officials that the two governments had withdrawn their monitors at the jail because Palestinian authorities could no longer guarantee their safety.

The Americans and Britons were posted there as part of an agreement to ensure that the six men, five of whom are suspected by Israel in the 2001 assassination of Israeli Tourism Minister Rehavam Zeevi, remained in custody. The 2002 arrangement, brokered by U.S. and British officials, helped end an Israeli military siege of Yasser Arafat’s compound in Ramallah.

Israeli troops moved in shortly after the monitors left early Tuesday. The raid came six days after the U.S. and British governments warned Abbas in a letter that they would pull out if Palestinian authorities did not improve safety conditions and tighten oversight of prisoners.

In a statement, Kidwa characterized the letter as confusing and disputed claims that the monitors were at risk. He said the letter did not appear to suggest that the two governments were about to end their role overseeing the incarceration of Ahmed Saadat, leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and the five others.

Israel said it acted to prevent the Palestinians from releasing Saadat, who was elected to the Palestinian parliament in January, and the other men. Officials said recent comments by Abbas and Hamas leaders suggested that Saadat, suspected of planning and ordering the 2001 killing, might soon be freed.

“I want it to be clear, it never occurred to me that the international supervisors would leave and that these murderers, these murderers of an Israeli minister and leader, would go free from prison without our capturing them and punishing them,” Olmert said Wednesday in his first public remarks since the raid.

Israeli officials denied criticism by Palestinian leaders and some Israelis that the raid was timed to help Olmert’s centrist Kadima party, which has held a significant lead in the polls.

Analysts said the operation would probably burnish Olmert’s security credentials, traditionally a key consideration for Israeli voters. Olmert lacks the security background of Ariel Sharon, the former general he replaced as prime minister and Kadima leader after Sharon suffered a stroke in January.

“Perfect timing and a little bit of luck is all one needs in life, and Olmert yesterday had his share of both one and the other,” commentator Ben Caspit wrote in the daily newspaper Maariv. “Even die-hard leftists couldn’t put a damper on this one.”

The jail was largely demolished in the raid.

Surrendering along with Saadat and four other PFLP members linked to the Zeevi killing was a sixth inmate wanted by Israel: Fuad Shubaki, implicated in a failed bid to smuggle explosives and weapons aboard a ship to the Gaza Strip in 2002.

Two Palestinians had been reported killed in the raid, but Jericho hospital officials said Wednesday that no bodies had been recovered.

In the Gaza Strip, kidnappers released the last four of nine foreigners seized during a spate of abductions Tuesday: two French nationals, a South Korean and a Canadian whose capture had not been made public.

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Times special correspondent Maher Abukhater in Ramallah contributed to this report, and Times wire services were used in compiling it.