Press Statement by Nayef Hawatmeh on the Israeli Raid on the Jericho Jail

This latest sanguinary blitz by Israeli forces, demonstrates once again that the occupation state is maintaining its policies of murder and destruction while refusing to comply with the documents and resolutions of international law.

Israel also continues to oppose global and balanced peace efforts; as well as the right of our people to an independent state in the 1967-occupied territories, with Jerusalem as its capital; and the return of refugees to their homes by virtue of Resolution 194.

Any intent of putting in danger the lives of national leader Ahmad Saadat, General Fouad Al-Shoubaki or the Palestinian fighters who were jailed in Jericho will open a new round of bloody conflict.

Israel alone will be responsible for the collapse of the truce and the deaths of its victims.

The American and British governments are accomplices in hiding this bloody and savage Zionist act, because the withdrawal of guards from both countries, before the start of the raid, demonstrated that these governments knew of Israel’s plans to attack the Jericho jail.

Contradictions among Palestinians are whetting the appetites of the occupants to continue with their policies of murdering our people’s children's, their colonialist activities and with the judaization of Jerusalem. This is why we should speed up the formation of a national coalition government based on a program of common denominators and begin a process of reconstructing PLO institutions on a democratic basis.

The international community is called upon to put pressure on Israel to immediately detain the men’s attackers and to protect the lives of the arrested Palestinian fighters – especially national leader Ahmad Saadat and Colonel Fouad Al-Shoubaki.

Central Information Office
Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine
March 14, 2006