JERICHO, West Bank — With tanks, bulldozers and helicopters, Israeli military forces besieged a Palestinian prison here for 10 hours on Tuesday before seizing six Palestinian inmates who had been held for four years in an unusual arrangement that involved the United States and Britain.
Shortly after the raid began, Palestinian militants responded with a kidnapping spree, seizing at least nine foreigners in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, though most were released unharmed after just a few hours.
The Israeli military charged into Jericho soon after British monitors left the prison on Tuesday morning. British and American monitors had been keeping watch since 2002 over the six Palestinian inmates — five of whom were behind the killing of Rehavam Zeevi, the Israeli tourism minister, in 2001 — but the monitors left because they felt their own security was at risk. The monitor arrangement was an Israeli compromise with the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to permit the men to remain in his custody, but Palestinian leaders had hinted recently at freeing them.
In exchanges of fire, Israeli forces killed a Palestinian security guard and a prisoner, and more than a dozen Palestinians were wounded, according to the Palestinians. The raid unleashed a wave of anger among Palestinians, who blamed Britain and the United States for removing their monitors. Mobs attacked several sites linked to Western countries, including the British Council, a cultural center in Gaza City, which was ransacked and set ablaze. The British Council office in Ramallah was also attacked, as was a branch of the HSBC Bank Middle East.
Gunmen in Gaza entered aid agencies, hotels and news offices looking for Westerners to kidnap. One American academic was held briefly and then released in the West Bank. In Gaza, most of those seized were soon freed, though a South Korean television correspondent and two French journalists were still being held Tuesday night, their governments said.
Some 15,000 Palestinians held a protest march in the streets of Gaza City on Tuesday night, and militants vowed renewed attacks against Israel.
Israel says five of the captured men will be put on trial in Israel for the killing of Zeevi, who was gunned down at a Jerusalem hotel. The sixth prisoner, Fuad Shobaki, was accused of helping to mastermind and finance a Palestinian weapons-smuggling effort.