Standoff At West Bank Jail

The army fired tank shells at the prison and bulldozers tore down some of the building's walls, but Saadat remained defiant.

"We are not going to surrender, we are going to face our destiny with courage," Saadat told Al-Jazeera television in a telephone interview from the jail.

The operation was the most high-profile Israeli incursion into a Palestinian town in months and came just two weeks before Israel holds hard-fought national elections. Palestinians condemned the raid as a campaign stunt, and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas blamed the United States and British governments.

U.S. and British observers who had monitored the jail for the past four years withdrew early Tuesday morning — just before the raid — citing security concerns.

"It's quite clear that the security of that prison and the security of the monitors was the responsibility of the Palestinian Authority, we made clear to them what we expected them to do, we gave them a warning," a British Foreign Office spokesman said.

The Israeli government ordered the raid because the monitors were withdrawn, the army said, blaming the Palestinians for violating the agreement regarding the prisoners.

Dozens of prisoners in their underwear came out of the prison building, where they were being searched and blindfolded by Israeli troops. Some of them were taken away. None of them appeared to be the six targeted men.

Israeli forces entered the town Tuesday morning and surrounded the prison, calling over loudspeakers for prisoners to give themselves up. The troops then burst through the front gate of the jail with a bulldozer, drove inside in armored personnel carriers, and engaged in a shootout with the Palestinian police, said Akram Rajoub, the local security commander.

One policeman standing near the gate was killed in the shootout and a prisoner was also killed, security officials said. It was not clear if the prisoner was one of those wanted by Israel.

Two large explosions were heard at the prison and thick smoke filled the sky. Children in the town threw rocks at the Israeli soldiers and burning tires were put in the roads. Troops were later heard calling for all the prisoners and guards to come out of the jail.

The prisoners said they would not surrender.

"Our prison is surrounded on all sides by Israelis. They are asking us over loudspeaker to come out," Ahed Abu Ghoulmi, one of the targeted prisoners, told The Associated Press by telephone. "We will not come out under any circumstances."

Saadat, who was elected to the Palestinian legislature in January, is being held for ordering the assassination of Israeli Tourism Minister Rehavam Zeevi in 2001.

Israel was also demanding the surrender of four other members of the PFLP, including the gunman who killed Zeevi, and Fuad Shobaki, the alleged mastermind of an illegal weapons shipment to the Palestinian Authority several years ago.

Zeevi's son, Palmach, told Israel's Channel 10 TV that the raid was "an extraordinary and very important decision" by the government.

The six men were being held at the jail under the supervision of British and American wardens in accordance with a deal worked out between President Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in April 2002. The agreement allowed the prisoners to be transferred from Yasser Arafat's besieged compound in the West Bank city of Ramallah, where they were holed up during Israel's operation Defensive Shield in April 2002.

Israeli hard-liners chafed at the deal, believing it allowed an assassin to escape justice. Palestinians also criticized the agreement, which forced them to jail one of their top militant leaders under Israeli pressure. After Hamas won the Jan. 25 Palestinian parliamentary elections, some leaders of the militant group said they planned to free Saadat.