Abducted Taxi Driver Freed in Israeli Commando Raid

Israeli commandos swooped down on a house in the West Bank and rescued unharmed an Israeli taxi driver who had vanished last week in an Arab neighborhood of Jerusalem, the army announced early today.

The disappearance Friday of Eliyahu Gurel, 60, had sent a shudder of anxiety across Israel, where a tenuous cease-fire declared two weeks earlier by Palestinian extremist groups had brought a measure of calm after 33 months of ferocious conflict.

But no Palestinian group had declared responsibility for the cab driver’s disappearance, and puzzling questions remained, including the motivation and affiliation of the alleged abductors. Israeli authorities promised a fuller accounting later.

The commando raid to free Gurel late Tuesday was described as a joint operation by elite Israeli army troops, police anti-terrorist forces and the Shin Bet intelligence service. There was no exchange of fire during the rescue, the army said.

The Israeli military said in a statement that two Palestinians arrested earlier Tuesday had led troops to the building where Gurel was held in the suburb of Beitunia, outside the West Bank city of Ramallah.

A third Palestinian was arrested while trying to flee, an army spokesman said, and two other people were picked up on suspicion of involvement.

Gurel’s taxi had been found idling Friday in the Palestinian village of Beit Hanina, just north of Jerusalem. His family reported a brief telephone call from him the next day saying he was all right but said that the conversation was abruptly cut off and that Arabic could be heard in the background.

The disappearance triggered demands from Israeli officials that the government of Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas do more to crack down on extremists.

After Gurel was freed, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, on a visit to London, telephoned the driver’s wife to offer his good wishes, Israel Radio reported.

Israeli media reports raised speculation that Gurel was seized as a potential bargaining chip in Palestinian efforts to win a large-scale prisoner release, but no explicit demand of that sort was made public.

The three-month truce declared by the main Palestinian extremist groups, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad, is not formally linked to the American-backed peace initiative known as the “road map,” but continued calm is considered crucial to its early stages.

Since the truce, or hudna in Arabic, was declared June 29, scattered violence has claimed several Israeli lives, including a young man stabbed to death Monday in Tel Aviv and a woman killed last week in a suicide bombing in a village near the West Bank.

In both cases, Palestinian factions claimed responsibility, but in both instances there were suggestions that the assailants’ actions had not been sanctioned by their groups’ leadership.

It was not immediately clear if Palestinian security forces had played any role in securing Gurel’s release. Palestinian officials had said they were hunting for him in and around Ramallah, but Israeli troops had been more visibly active, making sweeps of the city and its environs.