The United States and Britain withdrew their monitors on Tuesday from a Palestinian prison because of security concerns just before Israel moved in to apprehend a Palestinian leader held there, U.S. officials said.
The American and British monitors provided supervision at the prison complex in the West Bank city of Jericho which holds Ahmed Saadat, secretary-general of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), and other activists. Saadat was jailed over the assassination of Israeli Minister Rehavam Zeevi.
"The Palestinian Authority has consistently failed to meet its obligations" under an agreement which provided for monitors at the prison, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said in a statement. "Ultimately the safety of our personnel has to take precedence."
The United States and Britain informed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in a March 8 letter that the monitors would be withdrawn because security improvements had not been made, U.S. and British officials said.
'No U.S.-Israeli coordination'
U.S. and British officials had issued similar warnings to the Palestinian Authority in December and January about their concerns over the security of the monitors.
A U.S. official said the monitors pulled out just before Israeli forces moved in, but denied any U.S.-Israeli coordination on the raid.
"The IDF moving in was subsequent and a separate issue," said Micaela Schweitzer-Bluhm, spokeswoman for the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem.
But she said that Israel was provided with a copy of the March 8 letter to Abbas as required under the agreement. That letter made clear that the United States and Britain intended to withdraw.