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Palestine on Strike After Jericho Raid
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Palestinian
security forces sit on the ground in front Israeli soldiers after
being forced to strip.
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GAZA CITY, March 15, 2006 (IslamOnline.net
& News Agencies) - The Palestinian territories ground to a halt
under a general strike Wednesday, called by all factions to protest
against a massive Israeli army raid on a West Bank prison one day
earlier.
Businesses remained shuttered and
schools closed across the Gaza Strip and West Bank, reported Agence
France-Presse (AFP).
The strike was ordered late Tuesday,
March 14, during emergency talks in the Gaza Strip to protest Israel's
raid on the Jericho jail to arrest the leader of the Popular Front for
the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) Ahmad Saadat.
"The Palestinian factions called
during an emergency meeting for a general strike across the
Palestinian territories to condemn the seizure of Saadat, the Israeli
aggression and the killing of Palestinians," a delegate said.
Two Palestinian security guards were
killed and 26 others wounded, five of them critically in the Israeli
assault of the Jericho jail in a bid to capture Saadat, four other
PFLP members and wanted Fatah member Fuad Shubaki.
Israel holds the five PFLP members
accused by the Jewish state of being responsible for the killing of
Israeli tourism minister Rehavam Zeevi in 2001. The PFLP claimed the
assassination, saying it was to avenge the assassination of Saadat's
predecessor in October 2001.
Saadat surrendered to the occupation
troops after the day-long siege, which began just minutes after
British and US monitors at the jail withdrew.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas
left Strasbourg late Tuesday to return to the Palestinian territories
as unrest flared after the Israeli raid.
His spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina
warned that the situation "would reflect negatively on many
things, on the truce (and) the negotiations" and charged that
"Israel is committing a crime in Jericho".
US officials told Reuters Tuesday
that Israel received advance word from the United States that foreign
monitors were preparing to withdraw from the West Bank prison.
They said Washington had given Israel
a copy of a March 8 letter it sent to Abbas saying monitors could be
withdrawn at once unless security conditions were met.
Some Hostages Released
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Swiss
national Julien Grosclaude is seen after he was released.
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A number of foreigners were kidnapped
in the Gaza Strip and West Bank on Tuesday in a wave of attacks on
foreign interests to protest against the Israeli military operation
and perceived British and US collusion in the raid.
Two French women working for the
medical charity Medecins du Monde (MDM) were freed Tuesday evening in
the Gaza Strip.
"The two French workers with MDM
have been freed. They are safe," a government official told AFP,
without giving details.
Two Australians, an American and a
Swiss employee of the International Committee of the Red Cross were
also kidnapped but later released unharmed by their abductors.
Three foreign journalists, however,
were being held hostage in the Gaza Strip for a second day by fighters
from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
Two French and a South Korean were
also still in captivity "because the Palestinian Authority had
not managed to protect Ahmed Saadat," the PFLP said.
More than two dozen foreign aid
workers and journalists took refuge in the compound of the Palestinian
Preventive Security agency in the Gaza Strip.
Islam strictly
forbids kidnapping and killing innocent civilians.
UN Resolution
On the diplomatic landscape, Qatar
urged the UN Security Council Tuesday to condemn the Israeli raid and
oblige Tel Aviv to return all prisoners to Palestinian custody.
A draft statement by Qatari
Ambassador Abdulaziz Al-Nasser would further call on Israel to
withdraw all its forces from Jericho.
Council diplomats said the 15-nation
council would discuss the draft behind closed doors Wednesday after
Al-Nasser revised it overnight in response to council members' initial
comments, diplomats told Reuters.
Palestinian UN Observer Riyad Mansour
called on the council to "uphold international law" by
supporting the Qatari measure. He said the Israeli raid grew out of
"a desire to negate the Palestinian elections" won by Hamas.
But the text would almost certainly
face a veto from the United States, Israel's closest ally, if brought
to a vote in its current form, the diplomats said.
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