UNITED NATIONS – The Arab member of the Security Council, Qatar, yesterday tried to ratchet up international outrage over Israel’s arrest of Palestinian Arab terrorists, but America refused to hear it. Shortly after consultations among the 15 members of the council began, Ambassador John Bolton left the meeting, telling The New York Sun, “I said what I had to say.”

Qatar asked the council to demand Israel release six Palestinian Arab prisoners seized yesterday in the West Bank town of Jericho, after American and British monitors left the compound where they were held under Palestinian Arab guard. Half an hour after the departure of the monitors, Israeli troops raided the prison compound and captured the “Jericho six.”

Israel’s security forces enacted the second-highest alert across the country yesterday, fearing terror attacks intended to avenge the Jericho raid. All precincts were instructed by police chief Moshe Karadi to increase the presence of officers, especially in crowded spots, often targeted by suicide bombers, according to Israeli press reports.

Widespread Palestinian Arab rioting and hostage-taking followed the raid. Palestinian Arabs accused the West of conspiring to help Israel conduct the raid on Jericho. The charges were denied in London and Washington, where officials cited concerns for the monitors’ safety in the decision to withdraw them.

There was “reliable intelligence that the Palestinian Authority was going to release the prisoners the moment those monitors had left,” a Western diplomat who asked not to be identified, citing intelligence reasons, told the Sun yesterday. The diplomat did not disclose the source of the intelligence, it indicated that had Israel not acted quickly, the prisoners would have never faced justice.

Led by the secretary-general of the Palestinian Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Ahmed Sadat, five of the men known as the “Jericho six” were accused in complicity in the 2001 assassination of an Israeli cabinet member, Rehavam Zeevi. The sixth man, Fouad Shubaki, plotted a shipment of Iranian terror arms on a vessel named Karin-A, which was intercepted by Israel in 2001 after Yasser Arafat swore to President Bush that he had disavowed terrorism.

Although the prisoners vowed initially to never be taken by the Israelis, they surrendered yesterday several hours of siege and skirmishes in which one Palestinian Arab guard was killed. The early morning Israeli raid, which involved helicopters and tanks, led to unrest across the West Bank and Gaza. More than a dozen Westerners were taken hostage, and British and American diplomatic mission buildings were set on fire.

Israel’s security forces enacted the second-highest alert across the country yesterday, fearing terror attacks intended to avenge the Jericho raid. All precincts were instructed by Police Chief Moshe Karadi to increase the presence of officers, especially in crowded spots, often targeted by suicide bombers, according to Israeli press reports.

The events raised anger in throughout Arab world. “This will not help the peace process,” said the Qatari U.N. ambassador, Nassir Abdulaziz al-Nasser, who had called yesterday’s emergency meeting of the council. Mr. al-Nasser hoped a council statement stressing Israel’s responsibility for the situation would be signed on by all 15 members, but Britain and America indicated they would not support such council action, according to diplomats present at the closed-door meeting.

The Israeli Defense Force released a statement, saying the raid took place only after withdrawal of the foreign inspectors. The inspectors “had been supervising the implementation of the agreements made between Israel and Palestinian Authority regarding the imprisonment of the terrorists,” the statement said. After destroying the Jericho compound where the prisoners were held, the IDF took the prisoners into Israeli jails to face trials in Israeli courts.

The British and American monitors came to Jericho as part of a 2002 agreement that ended the Israeli siege of Arafat’s Ramallah compound. The six terrorist leaders, who were wanted by Israel at the time, had been hiding out in the compound known as Mukata along with Arafat. The IDF surrounded the compound for days, demanding the prisoners’ surrender.

In order to end the siege, Israel agreed to a Western-proposed compromise: The six would be jailed by the Palestinian Authority in Jericho, where British and American monitors would ensure they would not be released. But soon after Hamas’s victory in January’s elections, American and British officials began to fear for the monitors’ safety.

The Palestinian Arab U.N. observer, Riad Mansour, denied yesterday that the Palestinian Authority ever received any American or British indications of such fears before the decision to withdraw the monitors yesterday morning. “Why now? Why the British and Americans decided to withdraw? It stinks,” he told the Sun.

Britain’s foreign minister Jack Straw denied any conspiracy. “We kept saying to the Palestinians,” he told the House of Commons yesterday, “please, please, please improve the security and ensure the conditions of the Ramallah Agreement are being observed and ensure the security of our personnel.” Britain terminated its involvement in the Ramallah agreement because the Palestinian Authority “consistently failed to meet its obligations,” he added.

“The issue of the safety of the Jericho monitors has been a subject of concern for us for quite some time,” Mr. Bolton said at the United Nations. “The British and American consul-generals wrote to the Palestinian Authority last Wednesday,” expressing those concerns, he said. According to London’s Daily Telegraph, the British Consul in Jerusalem, John Jenkins, wrote to Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas Wednesday, warning him of imminent action.

The 2002 murder of Zeevi, who was a member of a coalition government led by Prime Minister Sharon, was considered by Israelis a crossing of a terror red line. Although Zeevi represented a party considered to be on the far right of Israeli politics and supported by scant numbers, his assassination marked the first time such a high official was targeted by Arab terrorists. Mr. Sharon vowed to bring the killers to trial and the fact that Arafat chose to shelter them was the main reason Mr. Sharon had cited for the Mukata siege.

“The Israeli side violated agreements,” Mr. Mansour argued yesterday. He said that Israel “cannot swallow” the results of the Hamas victory in January, choosing to “starve” the Palestinian Authority. He also said that the upcoming Israeli election might be behind yesterday’s raid.

The party of acting Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Kadima, is predicted by pollsters to win a majority of the votes in the March 28 election. Mr. Olmert lacks military credentials, and is criticized by the right of having little experience in handling security issues. Some on the Left yesterday accused Mr. Olmert of conducting the Jericho raid to bolster those credentials.