Israel press justifies Jericho raid

Israeli newspapers largely agree that Israel was left with no choice but to launch Tuesday's raid on a prison in Jericho to capture Palestinians wanted for the killing of an Israeli minister.

Some commentators believe the operation could give a boost to acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in the run up to the 28 March election. Others argue that Israel's hand was forced by the withdrawal of the UK and US monitors.

Headline in top-selling Yediot Aharonot

The account was settled - four-and-a-half years after the assassination, the murderers of minister Rehavam Zeevi were captured.

Headline in Maariv

We caught them - in a smooth military operation the murderers of minister Rehavam Zeevi were caught.

Nahum Barnea in Yediot Aharonot

No Israeli government could have let those jailed in Jericho go free. Yesterday's operation was the second test of Olmert as acting prime minister. Olmert dictated the line: siege, cool spirit and a patient wait for the surrender. The results are good for Kadima. Voters love such operations in which the enemy is humiliated and our forces return safely to base.

Roni Shaked in Yediot Aharonot

The operation in Jericho hit the moderate camp led by Abu Mazen [Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas] below the belt. It was another nail in his coffin, mainly because of the timing. Two days after the [Shimon] Peres-Abu Mazen meeting in Amman and at a time when Abu Mazen is in Europe trying to shape ways of bypassing Hamas, the Palestinian moderates were buried yesterday under the ruins of Jericho.

Yossi Verter in leftist Haaretz

The public likes leaders who show diplomatic moderation and military toughness. Olmert did not seek out or initiate this operation, and he would have passed on it had he been given the chance. It was too dangerous. But as soon as it was forced on him by the desertion of the foreign monitors, he had to act. If Zeevi's murderers had escaped and given ludicrous interviews to Israeli television channels, Olmert and his Kadima party would have been badly hurt.

Amit Cohen in centre-right Maariv

What we have here is... total disregard for the effects Israeli actions have on the Palestinian Authority. Yesterday it was proved that the US and Britain are also ready to disregard such effects, perhaps due to an understanding that an authority ruled by Hamas is already a fait accompli.

Zeev Schiff in National Religious Party affiliate Hatzofe

Yesterday's IDF operation at Jericho's jail was not political; it was prompted by intelligence reports... Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert could not have behaved otherwise. The stupid attempt by extreme left leader Yossi Beilin to intervene during the IDF operation and propose withdrawal on the strength of the promises of arch scoundrel Abu Mazen is worthy of sharp condemnation. Abu Mazen is today a puppet in Hamas' hands and any promise of his about the continued imprisonment of Zeevi's murderers is not worth the paper it is written on.

Editorial in English-language Jerusalem Post

The latest excuse for Islamist violence and mayhem began yesterday, when the British government, on behalf of itself and the US, announced that monitors deployed by both nations in a Palestinian Authority prison to ensure that the killers of tourism minister Rehavam Zeevi would not be released could no longer safeguard their own security, and had therefore left their posts earlier that morning... Faced with the imminent prospect of Zeevi's killers' going free, Israel raided the prison with the goal of arresting them... some Palestinians did, as usual, attempt to use violence to turn the world against Israeli behaviour and to distract from their own crimes that necessitated Israeli action. We can only hope that this time, this tactic will not succeed in obscuring what the operation served to highlight in unusually distinct relief, namely the gap between Western and Arab concepts of justice.

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