Six Palestinian prisoners have broken out from the Gilboa prison, known to be one of Israel’s most secured facilities.
The breakout has triggered a massive manhunt for the 6 people who have embarrassed Israel’s strict security measures.
Police, soldiers, and agents from Israel’s powerful internal security agency Shin Bet joined the search effort, officials said. Sniffer dogs were deployed and checkpoints set up in the area surrounding Gilboa.
“Overnight, we received a number of reports about suspicious figures in agricultural fields and from the prison service, which discovered very quickly that prisoners were missing from their cells and that six escaped,” police spokesman Eli Levy told Israeli Kan Radio.
The prisoners included Zakariye Zubeidi, 46, a former Fatah party leader in the northern West Bank city of Jenin, as well as five Palestinian Islamic Jihad members serving life sentences for involvement in attacks on Israelis during the Palestinian Intifada – or uprising – in the early 2000s.
The other detainees were identified as: Monadel Yacoub Nafe’at, 26, Yaqoub Qassem, Yaqoub Mahmoud Qadri, 49, Ayham Nayef Kamamji, 35, and Mahmoud Abdullah Ardah, 46. At least four men were serving life sentences, according to local media reports.
The Israel Prison Service (IPS) released a video that showed officers inspecting a narrow tunnel dug beneath a sink, burrowing deep into the ground.
This scene almost mirrors the famous jail break scene of the iconic 1994 Hollywood movie “The Shawshank Redemption”.
Palestinian victory.
The men were believed to have been headed for Jenin, where the internationally recognised Palestinian Authority wields little control and where Palestinians in recent weeks have confronted Israeli forces
Qadura Fares, head of the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club, described the brazen escape as a victory against the Israeli security system.
“We are happy with this escape. We have called a lot for the necessity of liberating all Palestinian prisoners. If the prisoners can free themselves, this is a great thing,” Fares, who spent 18 years in prison, told Al Jazeera.
Hamas, the group that controls the Israeli-blockaded Gaza Strip, called the escape a “real defeat” for Israel’s security system.
Islamic Jihad spokesman Dawood Shehab, described the breakout as a “heroic act” that was a “severe blow” to the Israeli army and Israel’s entire “security apparatus”.
“This is a long and open struggle … The occupation must understand the lesson well, our people will never surrender,” Shehab said in a statement carried by the Palestinian news agency Maan.
(Inputs from Al Jazeera)