Israel Captures 4 of 6 Escaped Palestinian Prisoners
Palestinians see the fugitives as icons who succeeded in embarrassing the Israeli prison system
Surrounded by a heavy Israel Police guard, each of the four Palestinian prisoners who escaped from a high-security prison earlier this week appeared at a Saturday night trial at the magistrates’ court in the northern Israeli city of Nazareth.
Since news of the daring breakout from Gilboa Prison through a hand-dug tunnel broke last Monday, Israel deployed a massive number of security forces, and its army flooded the West Bank, launching a huge manhunt operation.
Two of the fugitives were captured early on Saturday morning from a hiding place in a truck stop park just outside Nazareth in northern Israel, police said.
One of them is Zakaria Zubeidi, 46, who headed the armed wing of the Fatah movement headed by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank town of Jenin.
The other is Mohammad Ardah, 39, who was sentenced to life in prison in 2002 for his role in Islamic Jihad’s armed wing.
On Friday evening, police recaptured Islamic Jihad members Yaqub Qadri, 48, and Mahmoud Abdullah Ardah, 45. Mahmoud Ardah allegedly was the mastermind of the escape.
“Police located (the two fugitives) and chased them in a helicopter,” the Israel Police said in a statement. “They offered no resistance when they were arrested in the south of Nazareth.”
Israel Police officers and Israel Defense Forces troops had conducted a massive search operation for the six prisoners since they escaped on September 6 through a tunnel they had dug beneath a sink in their cell.
Six prisoners armed with the will to be free, dealt a painful and humiliating slap to the Israeli prison system
Palestinians reacted with jubilation to the news, turning the prisoners into icons.
“Six prisoners armed with the will to be free, dealt a painful and humiliating slap to the Israeli prison system,” Esmat Mansour, a Ramallah-based political analyst, told The Media Line, adding that Palestinians have a feeling of “hatred” toward prisons, and the breakout “restored respect to the Palestinians and humiliated Israel.”
Mansour, who spent 20 years in Israeli prisons, says the superiority of the Israeli prison system and the near impossible task of breaking out has contributed to the massive popular support for the fugitives.
“People felt dignity and that the prisoners made a miracle. The escape of the prisoners stirred the emotions of the Palestinians. It is without a doubt the story of David and Goliath,” he said.
The six men have either been convicted or are suspected of planning or carrying out deadly attacks against Israelis and were awaiting sentencing.
Gonen Ben-Itzhak, a former operative for Israel’s Shin Bet internal security apparatus, told The Media Line that the “prisoners sit in their cells and think, hoping to find the weak points of the prison and manage to escape in a way that is humiliating for Israel.”
“I don’t have all the details but from what I have I believe that Zakaria Zubeidi had tricked the prison intelligence officer,” added Ben-Itzhak.
The jail break from the maximum-security Gilboa Prison in northern Israel, Ben-Itzhak says, damaged Israel’s reputation as a leader in security matters. But, he adds, it was a top priority for Israel to make sure its security forces apprehended the prisoners without violence.
“It definitely hurt the reputation, but I am happy that we are talking about four out of six that were caught with no casualties, because I saw this event as having potential to become bigger, larger and more violent in terms of the West Bank, Gaza and even Lebanon and Syria,” he said.
Because of that, Ben-Itzhak says Israel needs to reevaluate its prison policy.
“Because prisons have many different leaders of Palestinian factions, political and military, that creates a major security problem for Israel. Is it the right thing to do by keeping the same factions in the same sections in prison?” Ben-Itzhak asks.
Israeli media reported Friday night that residents of the Arab city of Nazareth alerted police after seeing two men searching litter bins for food.
The news infuriated Palestinians.
“Israel tries, intentionally or unintentionally, to leak fake news and misinformation that an Arab family was behind their arrests, first to cover their own failure, and second to sow a rift in the ranks of the prisoners and the Palestinian community,” said Mansour, who disputes such accounts.
Ben-Itzhak says if it’s true that Arab Israeli citizens alerted police to the whereabouts of the fugitive prisoners, “this is the best proof that they are trying to be full citizens like everybody else.”
“They are citizens of the state of Israel, I hope one day they are fully equal, and I’m not surprised that they behave like citizens,” he said.
Mansour draws on the public’s support and the large crowds that showed up on Saturday night outside the court in the city of Nazareth when the four re-captured prisoners appeared before a judge.
“What happened proved that our brethren inside the Green Line are steadfast in their support of the Palestinian cause and the prisoners,” Mansour said.
