Jericho, West Bank ? At least 10 kidnapped foreigners, including an American professor held at an abandoned cemetery. A torched British Council building. Burned cars. Aid workers, teachers and journalists taking refuge at Palestinian security headquarters.

The spasm of violence against foreigners across Gaza and the West Bank on Tuesday was unprecedented in the Palestinian areas, exceeding even the recent attacks over cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. After nightfall, three hostages were still in captivity – two French citizens and a South Korean journalist.

What touched off the violence was an Israeli raid in Jericho on a Palestinian-run prison that is monitored by the United States and Britain in an unusual arrangement.

Troops using tanks, helicopters and bulldozers pounded the prison in a 10-hour standoff Tuesday to seize a Palestinian militant leader and his accomplices in the assassination of an Israeli Cabinet minister.

Angry Palestinians blamed the British and Americans for the raid: British monitors left the jail 20 minutes before the Israelis arrived Tuesday morning, citing concerns for their own safety.

An Israeli soldier sits in the back of a jeep as smoke billows from the prison during an army raid Tuesday in the West Bank town of Jericho.

Israel denied coordinating the attack with the U.S. or Britain. It said recent statements by Palestinian officials and Hamas leaders of plans to release its most-wanted prisoners, combined with the withdrawal of the monitors, forced it to act.

Israel was targeting Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine leader Ahmed Saadat, who ordered the assassination of Israeli Tourism Minister Rehavam Zeevi in 2001, and several other militants accused of carrying out the killing. Saadat was elected to the Palestinian legislature in January.

“There were clear indications these killers would be set free,” said Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev.

The six wanted prisoners, who insisted to Arab media that they would not be taken alive, were among the last to be taken.

About 15,000 Palestinians, led by dozens of gunmen firing in the air, marched through Gaza City chanting anti-Israeli and anti-American slogans on Tuesday night.