A spokesman for Yossi Beilin, leader of left-wing Israeli partly Merez, said Mahmoud Abbas gave him a personal guarantee in a telephone conversation that all six activists of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine would remain in prison if Israel stopped the operation.
Israeli defense forces launched a military operation on a prison in Jericho after Abbas said he was prepared to free one of the six inmates, Ahmed Saadat, who allegedly ordered the assassination of Israeli Tourism Minister Rehavam Zeevi in 2001.
Israeli authorities said five of the six inmates, including Saadat, were Palestinian militants involved in Zeevi's assassination, and the sixth, Fouad Shubaki, masterminded arms smuggling to Palestine.
Britain and the United States withdrew their monitors from Jericho just before the Israeli attack.
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said the observers left Jericho because the Palestinian National Authority could not guarantee their safety.
