The Palestinian territories ground to a halt under a general strike to protest against an Israeli army raid of a West Bank prison, as the authorities braced for further violence.
Three foreign journalists remained hostages of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine for the second day in the Gaza Strip, as thousands of Israeli troops deployed on high alert for possible revenge attacks.
Palestinian Authority president Mahmud Abbas was en route home after cutting short a tour of key European cities to manage the crisis sparked by Israel's capture of PFLP leader Ahmed Saadat and five other wanted militants in Jericho.
Businesses remained shuttered and schools closed across the Gaza Strip and West Bank after all Palestinian factions united to order a strike late Tuesday.
Palestinian security forces, ordered to respond with live fire to attacks against Western interests, remained on high alert after the Israeli operation sparked an unprecedented wave of security anarchy.
Two Palestinian security guards were killed and 26 others wounded, five of them critically, in the Israeli assault that ended with its aim: the capture of Saadat, four other PFLP cohorts and wanted Fatah member Fuad Shubaki.
The Israeli government strenuously denied that the raid -- less than a fortnight before a general election -- was motivated by political considerations, but kept security forces on high alert.
‘Thousands of police officers, border guards and volunteers have been mobilised in sensitive areas of Israeli territory,’ police spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld told AFP.
Security was also beefed up around foreign interests, notably British and American offices, after Anglo-US targets suffered the brunt of unrest that inflamed the Palestinian territories on Tuesday.
A senior Palestinian official said that Abbas, in Jordan for talks with Prime Minister Maaruf Bakhit, would demand Israel hand Saadat and his colleagues back to their former custody arrangements immediately.
‘We will ask the Israeli side to hand back Ahmed Saadat and his colleagues immediately,’ chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat said.
Saadat and three other PFLP members had been kept in Jericho under US and British supervision, since August 2002 after his militant faction claimed the 2001 killing of Israeli tourism minister Rehavam Zeevi.
‘When Abu Mazen returns he will meet with the Palestinian leadership to discuss what happened yesterday at all levels and how the Palestinian Authority will conduct their policy after the Israeli attack on Jericho,’ Erakat said.
Although at least 10 foreigners were kidnapped in a wave of attacks to protest against the raid and perceived British collusion, just two French journalists and a South Korean television correspondent remained in captivity.
The PFLP said the three were still being held ‘because the Palestinian Authority had not managed to protect Ahmed Saadat’. The leftist faction earlier vowed that their leader's capture would not pass without retaliation.
The French hostages were named as Caroline Laurent, a correspondent for Elle magazine, and SIPA agency photographer Alfred Yacobzadeh, who was also kidnapped in Beirut during the 1975-90 Lebanese civil war.
Seoul named their missing national as Yong Tae-young, 41, a correspondent for public broadcaster KBS, as the Korean government rushed to send an envoy to the Gaza Strip in a bid to secure his release.
Washington and the United States called for calm as Israel defended the operation amid mounting questions over why three British monitors at the prison were removed just minutes before the raid began.
Acting Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was quoted as telling a Russian-language newspaper that he ‘did not expedite the actions of the IDF (army)’ when ordering the storming of the prison.
Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz insisted that Israel had no alterative as he claimed the Palestinian Authority was on the verge of freeing those suspected of being behind Zeevi's assassination.
‘We have not been operating in Jericho for electoral reasons ... We had no choice but to intervene as no responsible state could allow the murderers of one of its ministers to be at liberty,’ Mofaz told Israeli public radio.