Six Palestinian security prisoners escape Israeli jail through the tunnel
The men are believed to have dug a hole in the floor of their cell at Gilboa prison, then crawled through a cavity and tunnelled beneath the outer wall. Officials were alerted by farmers who noticed them running through fields. The fugitives include a former leader of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade and five Islamic Jihad members.
An Israel Prison Service official described the escape as "a major security and intelligence failure". Palestinian militant groups hailed it as "heroic".The alarm was raised at Gilboa Prison, a high-security facility in northern Israel known as "The Safe", when authorities received reports from local farmers about "suspicious figures" in nearby agricultural fields.
When prison staff carried out a headcount at 04:00 (01:00 GMT), they found six missing inmates. The Palestinians are believed to have made their way out of the cell that they shared by digging a hole in their bathroom floor. The Jerusalem Post reported that they had used a rusty spoon that they hid behind a poster.
The hole led to a hollow space underneath the prison created during the facility's construction when piles were sunk into the ground. An Israeli police commander described it as a "structural flaw".The inmates are believed to have moved through the space to reach the prison's outer wall, then dug a tunnel that emerged in the middle of a dirt road just outside.
The Shin Bet security service said it believed the prisoners had been in contact with people outside the prison using a smuggled mobile phone and that they had been picked up in a car. The six fugitives include Zakaria Zubeidi, a former commander of the Palestinian militant group Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade in the West Bank city of Jenin, and five members of Islamic Jihad.
Four of the Islamic Jihad members served life sentences after being convicted of planning or carrying out attacks that killed Israelis. At the same time, the fifth had been held without charge for two years under a so-called administrative detention order, according to Israeli media.
Israeli forces arrested Zubeidi in 2019 on suspicion of involvement in several shooting attacks, and is currently standing trial. Israeli border police and army troops involved in the search have reportedly set up roadblocks to stop the men from reaching the nearby occupied West Bank or Jordan, which is about 14km (nine miles) to the east of Gilboa prison.
Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett spoke to Public Security Minister Omer Bar-Lev and "emphasised that this is a grave incident that requires an across-the-board effort by the security forces" to find the fugitives.
Islamic Jihad described the jailbreak as "heroic" and said it would "shock the Israeli defence system". In contrast, Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said it was a "great victory" that proves "the will and determination of our brave soldiers inside the prisons of the enemy cannot be defeated".
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