Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz has extended the complete closure on the territories at least until Saturday night. Security forces are on high alert for fear of Palestinian retaliation for Israel Defense Forces action on Tuesday.
IDF Chief of Staff Dan Halutz yesterday rejected allegations that the raid was timed to help Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and his Kadima party in the upcoming elections. ‘If the alternative is that murderers go free, then it's better to act and be accused of political timing,’ Halutz said after meeting President Moshe Katsav. He said the timing was the result of the departure of British and American inspectors.
Israel yesterday released most of the Palestinians it had arrested in the raid on Jericho Prison.
After screening the 327 detainees who turned themselves in, the army decided to keep about 40 for further interrogation. Among those in the group are six men on Israel's wanted list who were the specific target of the operation.
One of them is suspected of having taken part in the lynch of two IDF soldiers in Ramallah in October 2000.
The six wanted men were transferred to a Shin Bet facility, and are being interrogated separately.
A British lawyer representing the detained secretary general of the Popular Front, Ahmed Saadat, complained yesterday that Israel is preventing her from meeting him.
Saadat and the other five will be brought before a military judge for an extension of their remand. Israel will decide at a later stage whether to try them in an Israeli court.
Military sources said yesterday that the other detainees include activists in various ‘terror’ organizations who had been held by the PA, as well as several members of the Palestinian defense forces who are also suspected of ‘terror’ activity.
Among the men who were returned to the PA are 33 convicts who had not been involved in ‘terror’.
Israel keen on coordination
Military sources said yesterday that Israel wants to reinstate security in Jericho. Israeli officers spoke to their Palestinian counterparts in the West Bank town yesterday for that purpose. Israel is interested in keeping up coordination on security affairs as long as a Hamas government in charge of the security forces is not formed.
Palestinian sources admitted that the Israeli raid was relatively reserved, and that despite destruction of the Jericho Prison, a big effort was made not to harm innocent people. Two Palestinian policemen were killed in the raid, after a few policemen exchanged fire with Israeli soldiers surrounding the compound.
GOC Central Command Yair Naveh expressed sorrow for their death.
Meanwhile, 11 Qassam rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip toward Israel yesterday. About half of them landed within the Palestinian Authority, and the rest fell in open areas in the northern and western Negev. There were no casualties and no damage was reported.
Military sources said Fatah and Islamic Jihad were responsible for the firing.