Palestinian Prisoners Surrender

Militant Leader Gives Up After Israeli Prison Raid, Foreigners Kidnapped In Retaliation

(CBS/AP) 

At first, the Palestinian guards fought the Israeli troops. Hawkins (audio) watched the firefight, which left one Palestinian dead and several injured, from the roof of a nearby house. Then the guards surrendered, but Saadat vowed to stay holed up inside the prison.

Among the developments:

Some 15,000 Palestinians, led by dozens of gunmen firing in the air, marched in Gaza City to protest the raid. The demonstrators, chanting anti-American and anti-Israeli slogans, marched toward the Palestinian parliament building.

A police-escorted convoy carrying 15 foreigners, including an American couple and their three children, left Gaza City headed toward Israel. Earlier, foreigners had sought refuge with the Palestinian security forces.

A U.N. aid agency and the International Committee of the Red Cross said Tuesday they were temporarily pulling all foreign staff out of the West Bank and Gaza.

Palestinian gunmen on Tuesday kidnapped American university professor Douglas Johnson in the West Bank and threatened to kill him if Israel harmed Saadat. The English professor had been buying something from a street vendor in Jenin. Later, he was freed.

The troops surrounded the prison for nearly 10 hours, smashing down walls with bulldozers and shooting tank shells at its walls. Dozens of prisoners and Palestinian police were pulled out of the building in their underwear and searched and blindfolded by Israeli troops.

The six wanted prisoners, who insisted they would not be taken alive, were among the last to surrender. The gray-haired Saadat, wearing a light-colored jacket, walked out of the prison in a single file line with his peers. He looked down and did not raise his arms in surrender, as many of the other prisoners had done throughout the day.

In addition to the five men implicated in Zeevi's murder, Israel also seized Fuad Shobaki, the mastermind of an illegal weapons shipment to the Palestinian Authority several years ago, and 15 other militants, said Maj. Gen. Yair Naveh, the chief of Israel's central command.

Israeli government spokesman Raanan Gissin said the men would bet put on trial.

Zeevi's son, Palmach, hailed the raid as "brave" and said his father "would have said this is the right thing to do."

British and American officials said they had complained repeatedly about security conditions at the prison and threatened in a letter last week, a copy of which was sent to Israel, to remove the monitors if things did not improve immediately.

Naveh said troops had been waiting for days outside Jericho for the monitors to leave. Minutes after the withdrawal Tuesday morning, the troops rushed in, he said, denying there was any coordination with the monitors.

Hundreds of Israeli troops entered the town, bursting through the front gate of the jail with a bulldozer and exchanging fire with the Palestinian police.

Continued

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©MMVI CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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