A Palestinian, who was one of several dozen prisoners set free by Israeli forces during their raid on Jericho prison in
March, was responsible for a ‘suicide attack’ that killed four illegal
Israeli settlers and himself late Thursday night — an attack that was
immediately condemned by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
During the Jericho raid on March 14, which Israeli officials claim was to abduct Ahmed Sa’adat, a Palestinian resistance leader, and put him into Israeli custody, Israeli Forces, backed by tanks and a helicopter gunship, raided and demolished to rubble the Palestinian prison complex in the West Bank town of Jericho. The Israeli troops kidnapped the leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation Front (PFLP) and newly-elected lawmaker Ahmad Saadat and 32 others, and let loose dozens of security and criminal inmates.
Two Palestinian police officers and two prisoners were killed, including one who died from his injuries a few days later.
Three days after the raid the Israeli daily Haaretz warned that Israeli forces were “preparing for possible (Palestinian) revenge attacks.”
Ahmad Masharkah, 24, from the Hebron area in southern West Bank, who had been arrested by the Palestinian National Authority, and was imprisoned in Jericho prison, was among those who were set loose by the IOF raid.
On Thursday night, dressed like an Orthodox Jew, Masharkah blew himself up together with four Jewish settlers at the entrance of the illegal Israeli colony of Kedoumim in the northern West Bank.
Palestinian President Abbas on Friday condemned the attack and urged Palestinians to adhere to the ceasefire with the Israeli Forces — despite the fact that Israeli forces have violated the cease fire hundreds of times, including killing over 240 Palestinians since the ceasefire began last year.
“The Palestinian Authority does not accept [this suicide attack]. We condemn it and we don’t think it will help the peace process,” he said in Cape Town during a three-day official visit to South Africa.
