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| Six Palestinian prisoners — four of whom were serving life sentences — escaped from a high-security Israeli prison through an underground tunnel | ||
| 2021-09-07 | ||
Six Paleostinian prisoners — four of whom were serving life sentences — beat feet from a high-security Israeli prison through an underground tunnel, launching a massive manhunt in the country just ahead of the Jewish new year. Five of the six escapees were affiliated with the Islamic Jihad ...created after many members of the Egyptian Moslem Brotherhood decided the organization was becoming too moderate. Operations were conducted out of Egypt until 1981 when the group was exiled after the assassination of President Anwar Sadat. They worked out of Gaza until they were exiled to Lebanon in 1987, where they clove tightly to Hezbollah. In 1989 they moved to Damascus, where they remain a subsidiary of Hezbollah... movement, and one was Zakaria Zubeidi, a prominent figure with the Fatah organization. Israeli officials said the prison break was a big failure of the prison authorities on the highest levels and are fearful of attacks or copycat prison breaks. On Sunday night around 1:30 a.m. local time the six prisoners escaped through a tunnel that started in a pit under cell number 5 and ended 50 feet away on the other side of the prison walls. Several years ago a group of Islamic Jihad prisoners tried to escape in the exact same way taking advantage of the fact the prison was built on big concrete posts which left open space under the cells. At the time they were caught before using the tunnel. An initial investigation found the current escape took advantage of the same weaknesses in the building, some of which were never fully fixed. The prison intelligence had no information about any break out plans. On Sunday, 24 hours before the escape one of the prisoners, Zakaria Zubeidi — a member of the Fatah organization — asked to switch cells and move to the cell where five Islamic Jihad prisoners were held. The request was unusual but didn’t raise any suspicions. All of the six prisoners were originally from the city of Jenin in the north of the occupied West Bank — only 10 miles from the prison.
Zubeidi has claimed his turn to terror came following the deaths of his mother and brother, who he says were shot and killed by Israeli soldiers during street battles in Jenin during the early days of the Intifada. The operation was a response to a wave of Paleostinian suicide kabooms inside Israel; many of the bombers had emerged from Jenin. Zubeidi was also known for his close ties with some on the radical anti-Zionist Israeli left, who saw him as a potential partner. His relationship with anti-Zionist activist Tali Fahima — who later converted to Islam — was notorious; Fahima went to his Jenin home to act as a human shield to prevent the Israeli army from targeting him. In 2007, the Shin Bet security service and the Paleostinian Authority reached an amnesty deal for thousands of Paleostinians who had fought against Israel during the wave of violence. Zubeidi was one of them, and founded a so-called "Freedom Theater" in Jenin with a director of both Jewish and Arab Israeli heritage, Juliano Mer-Khamis. Over a decade later, Israeli forces apprehended Zubeidi, charging that he had resumed his terror activities. The Shin Bet security service later said Zubeidi had confessed to two shooting attacks on buses outside the Beit El settlement in the central West Bank in November 2018 and January 2019 that maimed three people. When Zubeidi arrived in court in March 2019, his charge sheet was long: two counts of intentionally causing death — the military legal system’s equivalent of murder — as well as multiple counts of attempting to intentionally cause death, membership in a terrorist group, weapons sales, firing guns at people and preparing explosives. Some of the offenses dated back to the Second Intifada, before the amnesty agreement. But the Shin Bet said that Zubeidi’s alleged participation in renewed shooting attacks nullified the amnesty agreement, opening him up to prosecution for his terrorist activities during the early 2000s as well. Zubeidi’s trial is ongoing and he has yet to be formally acquitted, convicted, or sentenced. In 2018 — before his arrest by Israel — Zubeidi completed a master’s degree at Birzeit University. His dissertation, "The Dragon and the Hunter," chronicled "pursuit in Paleostinian experience." "The dragon outwitted the hunter," rejoiced Fatah official Mounir al-Jaghoub on his Twitter page after Monday’s escape. ‘NOT THE FIRST NOR THE LAST’ The other runaway Paleostinians are members of the Islamic Jihad ...created after many members of the Egyptian Moslem Brotherhood decided the organization was becoming too moderate. Operations were conducted out of Egypt until 1981 when the group was exiled after the assassination of President Anwar Sadat. They worked out of Gaza until they were exiled to Lebanon in 1987, where they clove tightly to Hezbollah. In 1989 they moved to Damascus, where they remain a subsidiary of Hezbollah... terror group, all from the Jenin area. Eham Kamamji, 35, from Kufr Dan, attacked and murdered 18-year-old Israeli Eliyahu Asheri, from the West Bank settlement of Itamar, in 2006. Kamamji, along with two accomplices, kidnapped and shot Asheri in the head at point-blank range. Kamamji reportedly confessed to the crimes in court, expressing his pride in the murder. "The teen I murdered was not a boy. He studied in an Israeli Air Force military college. I will not be the first nor the last, so long as the occupation continues," The Jerusalem Post reported from his 2007 sentencing hearing. The al-Arida brothers — Mahmoud, 46, and Mohammad, 39 — were arrested in 1996 and 2002 for terror offenses. Both brothers, from Arraba near Jenin, are currently serving life sentences and are avowed members of Islamic Jihad. Yaqoub Qadiri, 49, was arrested for planning terror attacks against Israelis, as well as for his membership in Islamic Jihad. Under Israeli military law, membership in a terror group on its own is a criminal offense that is punishable by years in prison. The sixth and final detainee, Islamic Jihad member Munadil Nafayat, 26, is from the West Bank town of Yaabad, near Jenin. Nafayat, unlike his fellow runaways, had not been charged with a crime. Rather, he was held under Israel’s practice of administrative detention, which allows it to imprison suspects without filing charges for security purposes. Administrative detention is legal under international law, which recognizes its necessity in extreme situations. Nonetheless, human rights ...not to be confused with individual rights,mind you... groups contend that Israel abuses it; the practice is mostly used against Paleostinians suspected of terrorism. Nafayat’s current stint in Israeli jail began in 2019. But he had been held in administrative detention before, including a four-month stint in 2015, according to Paleostinian media reports. | ||
| Posted by:Fred |