"Sanwar was a rabbit, always used to keep his hands clean, wept bitterly when he found out he had cancer"

For more than 20 years of Yahya Senwar in prison, retired Gondar Betty Lahat was responsible for much of his imprisonment.

In an interview with the Maariv supplement, she describes a cruel and quiet man, much different from the one portrayed today as the leader of Hamas.

"When I see him in Gaza go out and get excited, I wonder how we suddenly become a hero?"

Sherry Makover-Belikov

28/05/2022

Saturday, 28 May 2022, 10:30 Updated: 10:43

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In the video: Protection work in Gilboa prison to prevent another prisoner escape (Photo: IPS)

Retired Gondar Betty Lahat was the chief intelligence officer in the prison service and the first woman to command men's prisons.

Lahat broke the glass ceiling and ruled with a high hand over terrorists from the arms of Hamas who were in prison with her.

Indirectly responsible for this dramatic promotion was the terrorist Patma Barnawi, who planted a bomb at the Zion cinema in Jerusalem, was caught, imprisoned, released in a prisoner exchange deal and became the headquarters of the police force in Gaza.

"I was the commander of Neve Tirza Prison, the top professional women at the IPS, when the GSS asked me to talk to the terrorist on the phone so that she could help us with an inmate from the Islamic Jihad who was on hunger strike," Lahat recalls.

"It was the Oslo period, and there was a fear that she would die and set fire to the street. So I spoke to Nipple in Arabic.

"And then I sat down with Commissioner Amos Azzani and I said to him, 'Look what a scene, the terrorist was my 12 year prisoner and in the end she was promoted before me. Do you make sense?'. I was going to argue with him, but Azzani was a bit radish and took my stuff seriously. He told me, "Unfortunately, the women in our organization have no horizon to advance to the command of a men's prison." I told him, "That's right, and that's why they brought you."

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"He was a rabbit, how do we become a hero?".

Sinwar (Photo: Screenshot, Twitter)

Going from women's prison to men's prison is considered a promotion?

"Yes, because the women's prison is 200 inmates, it is impossible to advance from there to senior positions. And I really finished the command of Neve Tirza and went out to study and suddenly the commissioner called. He asked, 'How are the studies?' You have the pleasure, but we have a serious problem with Tel Mond Prison (Hasharon) and we thought of appointing you to its headquarters. ' To the organization. "

At first it was unbearable.

Lahat arrived at the prison suffering from complex failures and a failing management history.

She received a frustrated staff, reluctant prisoners and explosive violent problems.

"Suddenly a little woman came with a quiet voice and it seemed to everyone that exercises could be done over her head," she smiles.

"I had to learn to restrain both the staff and the prisoners and educate them to a new organizational culture and strict incarceration laws. So I made them a school. When I realized it was hard for the guards with being a woman, I gathered them all and said, ' The profession and I know what I want and you should get used to it. "

"I had Ahmad Yassin and Salah Muhammad Shehadeh on the one hand, and on the other a Jewish youth wing and a rehabilitation wing and heavy criminals from the Commonwealth of Independent States that no one yet knew how to eat. There was a stabbing incident with Shalom Domrani in Ayalon prison and riots started, so the commissioner dispersed the prisoners and sent Domrani to me. He came and said to my officer, 'I will not enter the cell until I get the personal kettle I had in Ayalon prison.' Chicken, so he tried like that to soften it, to explain that we have no manpower to send someone to fetch a kettle to a prisoner from another city.

"When I heard that, I went on a rampage. I said, 'Bring your dominoes to me.' The kettle, however, asked, "Do you have any sex offenders? Because I am not ready to be in one wing with them." I told him, "No prisoner will choose his neighbors," With clothes bags in hand and begged the guards to get them out of the wing quickly. "

Was not willing to be in the same cell with sex offenders.

Domrani (Photo: Image Processing, Benny Ben Simon)

And Salah Shehadeh?

"At first he did not want to talk to me. I called him and said, 'When I call you, you settle down.' To help the Palestinian street and even asked me to bring him material in Arabic on social workers so that he could develop in the field. I did not believe him for a moment, because I did not hear terrorists expressing remorse.

"I remember the Jewish lawyer Tamar Peleg represented him and fought him, There is a progressive left but then the left was also Zionist, and we have not seen lawyers embracing terrorists who have carried out terrorist attacks.

I said to the lawyer, 'How are you able to fight for the release of Shehadeh when we both know he will return to carry out terrorist attacks?'

By the time it became the prison headquarters where inmate Yahya Sanwar was imprisoned, Lahat had already amassed a handsome mileage in the treatment of terrorist terrorists, led by Marwan Barghouti and Saleh Aruri.

"Allow the inmates to pray on Fridays in the group, and Aruri took advantage of the prayer to deliver an extremely belligerent and inciting sermon," she says of the man who today serves as Sanwar's deputy.

"In my first meetings with the prisoners, I warned them that whoever incited against Israel would be sent to the dungeon. So I demanded that my convicts be sent there. Prison officials told me, 'There will be riots.'

"I said, 'Okay, but they'll learn we're the sovereign and not them.' "And throw in the dungeon even the one who threw plates and pots." After a few hours in a cursed dungeon, he called me. I did not understand me correctly.

"I said to him, 'Are you standing in front of me and lying?

Do you want me to play the tape for you?

How on earth are you a hero for young people, sending them to carry out suicide bombings, and here you're scared on your butt? '

This was a time that could be seen before our eyes with whom we were dealing.

Today politicians speak differently.

They cultivate illusions and cultivate Barghouti.

"Begged me to take him out."

Awkward (Photo: AP)

To Senwar, then the prisoner leader and now the Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip, Lahat arrived ready.

The head of the intelligence service, who played almost every major role in the IPS, was responsible for much of his imprisonment in Israel. At first, Sanwar refused to acknowledge her authority or talk to her. 22 years in prison made him a senior prisoner. He was behind incidents and riots among the prisoners and in front of the prison authorities, but always made sure to keep his hands clean and most of the others paid the price in his place.

" '', Says Lahat. "So I answered him in Arabic, 'You do not sit with me, I will sit with you.'

There was some tension in the air and then we started talking.

Whenever I wanted to hear what was going on in prison, I would call him to the office.

"Because he demanded that prisoners not speak to us directly but through a spokesman, people would humiliate him, tell him jokingly, 'The jailer is calling you.' They have elections through lawyers we call 'birds', who transfer the election results from prison to prison. "

"He is a very suspicious person. He had a first circle of prisoners that surrounded him and he examined them dozens of times before trusting them. He is also antipathetic and cruel. The image 'the butcher from Khan Yunis' suits him very well because he comes from a strong family background in Gaza, And before he was arrested, he would rule out fear and terrorism, dig pits, throw people he suspected of coming out against him, and pour concrete on them while they were alive. In prison, too, he would send prisoners to hurt those he disliked.

"He set up committees in prison whose job it was to test the credibility of the prisoners, sent prisoners to stab guards and agitate the area, and always behind the scenes. He would take a sucker, tell him, 'stab a prisoner,' and then say of him, 'The man is crazy, he has nothing to lose.' He never stood in front and took responsibility or led the prisoners. On the contrary. When investigations began after the events he organized, Senwar was trembling with fear. Hiding behind others. ".

Antipat and cruel but rabbit.

Sanwar (Photo: AP)

How did he deal with the tumor they discovered in his head?

"He was terribly scared. When he started having headaches, we sent him from Nafha Prison in the south to Ayalon Prison, and later they found a tumor near his brain, and the man just fell apart because it was a very violent cancer. We brought him to Assaf Harofeh Hospital, where he underwent surgery to remove The tumor. I came to see him after the operation. I said to him, 'You see, at the end of the State of Israel that you are so out against it, saved your life.' And the man started crying. He said, 'No one explains to me what my situation is, even my family does not know if this is my end.'

"So I called the doctor who explained to him that the tumor had been cleaned and that no metastases were currently seen. But Sanwar continued to be frightened. Every time he saw me he asked, 'What will happen to me, the tumor will not return?' , And senior Palestinian Authority officials asked to visit him and allowed them to.

First, the Minister of Prisoners, Sufian Abu Zeida, arrived, and when he left the visit, I asked him, 'Well, what, the hero cried for you too?', And he said, 'Yes, there is nothing to do, Sanwar is afraid for his life.'

"Most of the prisoners did not like Senwar because he used them and they knew he cared mainly for himself, but they were afraid of his cruelty, and appreciated the status he acquired in both Gaza and prison. To beat cruelly, to kill, to oppress, and if there was a prisoner he disliked, he would give an order not to get him anywhere, and we would have to put him in solitary confinement for long periods, for that was the only thing that protected him.

"There were some who came to prison and I saw them with packages The clothes in the hands stand at the gate and are not ready to go anywhere except for defensive isolation because they have received threats, even though being in isolation for a long time is hell in itself.

Sanwar kindled the fire and sent messages through the inmates, and at the time of the incident he used to sit quietly.

I have never heard him speak in the way he is expressed today in Gaza.

It's two different people. "

In prison, Lahat remembers, Senwar also took the time to acquire an education.

"This is a very smart person who has invested in his intellectual development and in a deep understanding of Israeli society," she says.

"He appointed prison staff who listened to all Israeli radio and television stations, and followed the politicians. They would listen to political analyzes and political interpretations. When we searched his cell, we found valuable intelligence material. We published his reviews for the army and the GSS.

"Sometimes I would be ashamed of how they do such a thorough job of us when we throw them in cells and think it's all over. They knew not only the moves but also the faces and names. Involved in the lists, headed by Sanwar, so Ofer Dekel (then in charge of returning prisoners and missing persons) told me, 'Let's do an exercise for them.

Gather the senior inmates and tell them you have a guest who wants to sit on the sidelines, and talk to them in my presence so I can try to figure out where maybe you can click.

"So I called them in and said I had a guest who wanted to come in. Dekel came into the room, and they immediately picked him up. Sanwar and Samir Kuntar looked at him and said, 'There is no Ofer Dekel.' "Among the planners of the abduction. But Sanwar said innocently, 'We can not intervene. We only get what the leadership decides outside.'"

"I have never heard him speak in the way he is expressed today in Gaza. It is two different people."

Sanwar (Photo: Walla !, from Twitter)

How did he become a Hamas hero?

"Israel is to blame for this. I think she did not read him correctly and attributed to him the qualities of a leader even though he is the complete opposite. Not every cruel man who exploits prisoners can be a leader. Israel magnified him, gave him a lot of confidence, and the media pumped that message "That he will do to us, send us, harm us, and in the end the golem rises up against its creator. He is not so charismatic, and with all due respect to what is said about his ability to harm Jerusalem because we climb the Temple Mount, he has many enemies on the Palestinian street."

"Senwar gained strength with our help. When he was released, he was not so strong. We empowered him, and when the Gaza street saw the State of Israel describing Senwar as the leader of the Strip, he followed him week after week to the fences. , To go wild, because he realized that it was impossible to kill the prisoners, to isolate and disperse them, and that is exactly what he is doing today with the demonstrations near the fence.

"He adopted the recipe and fought in the State of Israel in the same way he fought the prison administration.

And even in prison he would appropriate for himself the benefits that the prisoners received.

Would say, you get canteens and family visits because of the struggle we waged for you and because we sat hungry and paid a price.

But he personally never paid a price.

Even today, he says in Gaza, all the concessions and permits to go to work were obtained thanks to him. "

"Israel has attributed to him the qualities of a leader even though he is quite the opposite."

Senwar with Ismail Haniyeh (Photo: Reuters)

What is the difference between Sanwar and Barghouti?

"Sanwar is much more radical than Barghouti religiously and therefore also more dangerous. Sanwar is also tougher. Barghouti, for example, never withstood hunger strikes. Barghouti also has no charm, he has no presence, his appearance is neglected. When Barghouti started writing the document The prisoners As part of Israel's attempts to turn him into a moderate Palestinian leader, he teamed up with Issa 'Abd al-Nasser, an intelligent and charismatic young man.

" Mini Roads, and removed him from the list of prisoners set for release in the deal.

But Barghouti, too, caught on.

One day Gideon Ezra went to prison as Deputy Minister of Internal Security.

I went down to greet him and he said, 'I have come to visit Barghouti'.

I told him, 'This is not acceptable.'

So he called Commissioner Orit Adeto and told her,

"Edto came out of it wisely. She said to him as if jokingly, 'This commander does not even let me see Barghouti sometimes.' I said to him, 'You can not infringe on our authority, it is not acceptable, but let's do something else, take a tour of Barghouti's wing, go through all the cells and as if by chance you will reach him and sit with him for a while'

.

We passed between the cells, all the prisoners standing in honor of the minister, and only Barghouti sitting on his bed in dirty clothes, with a short tank top because it was summer.

I remember they put a banana on his bed.

I said to Barghouti, 'Get up and stand in front of the entourage of the minister and district commander who came in his honor, and put a shirt on you.'

He told me, 'Not standing.'

I told him in Arabic, 'I will not let them enter you until you put on a shirt and stand and respect them.' "

" Get dressed and get up,

The most striking thing about a passionately retired sub-Gondar is that she's really not afraid.

Not as a commander in front of heavy and multi-terrorist criminals, and not today, when she sharply criticizes senior security and justice officials who she claims want to buy silence in exchange for benefits for "heavy" prisoners.

The senior IPS officials responsible for the pimping cases in the prisons and the escape of the prisoners from Gilboa Prison also have a full stomach, and she spreads her positions with complete confidence.

"I did not grow up in North Tel Aviv," she smiles. I faced them as a child, and since then I have not really been afraid of them and anyone.

"When I got to the other side of the barricade, nothing deterred me and I always told my staff, if we are afraid of the prisoners, we will not be able to work."

"Lacking charm, never endured the hunger strikes."

Barghouti (Photo: AP, David Silverman)

Have you been threatened?

"I was the most intimidated, but I never played on it. Every week I was called to the intimidation committee and offered to place fences and gates around my house. I said, there will not be and will not be. For long periods the police jeeps patrolled near my house, but I continued on my way And I did not let fear disturb me. I received threats on my life already in Neve Tirza. Sarah Angel, who was my prisoner, wanted to be the queen of the class and I did not allow her. So they put letters in my mailbox with threats on my life. At first I did not take seriously. I'm tired.

"I took the letters and went to Sarah who was in the dungeon because of a disciplinary offense.

I told her, 'Tell her husband your husband to push his letters and you know where.'

The next day I was called to the commission, they did no-no-no, but apparently I built myself up, because since that incident the prisoners have taken me seriously and learned that they are the ones who should be afraid of me, and not the other way around.

At another incident I was told that a known criminal was threatening my family.

"Again they offered to secure us, I told them, 'Where is he now?'" They said, he is at the IPS hospital.

I went in to him, stood in front of his bed and said, 'Listen to me well, neither you nor Alef like you scare me, and if you approach my children, you and your children will be hurt.'

One of the inmates lying in the other bed said to me, 'Tell me, are you a Shiite suicide?

Is that how you talk to him? '

I told him, 'I will never see that I am afraid of you.' "

were afraid?" No.

My husband always said, 'What's scary is that you're not afraid.' Of a source in circumstances imposed by a restraining order.

"I was already so exhausted that I stopped fighting and decided to leave," she says painfully.

"To this day it's hard for me to talk about it. For 32 years I worked in the public service and fought for the freedom not to be afraid and to do what's right in front of the prisoners and guards. It cost me my job. "

"Yes. The escape of the terrorists from Gilboa Prison, for example, is a terrible omission. The more details were revealed, the greater the disgrace. There were clear early signs: the prisoners complained about the eastern toilet and asked for a European toilet. And some of the prisoners knew it. And the driver of the truck that pumps the sewage came to the farm officer and warned of abnormal amounts of sand in the sewer. There are more screams to the sky than that?

"The floors and bars should be inspected at least once a week, the carpets should be lifted. I understand that the prisoners demanded not to touch them on the prayer rugs, but in security matters we are the sovereign, not them. Prisoners worked on them and turned them around and everyone knew and kept quiet.

"The escaped prisoner Zakaria Zabeidi is supposedly a source of intelligence officers and therefore is not checked, so it happens that one night there is a request to go through a cell and confirm and transfer the prisoner without even asking how he is connected to Islamic Jihad members' cell. And why he suddenly wants to move there.

If you want to move it to cultivate it as a source, at least put observations on it, do something.

"They dig you under the nose for a whole year and no one investigates or asks? After all, the main role of the IPS is to keep the prisoners.

I'll tell you the truth, I really like Commissioner Katie Perry, but when the prisoners fled and the details became clear, I could not defend her, because although the excavations started before she was appointed commissioner, there were so many failures, this is a systematic deterioration and escape is just another tier. ".

" This affair began with the shift of Commissioner Ofra Klinger.

There has never been such a thing in my time.

And if there had been, the then commissioner, Jacob Ganot, would have turned worlds to eradicate it.

If I had heard of a pimp in the wards, the sky would have fallen.

Ganot in life would not sweep it under the rug.

He would riot, wash, move, not let the prisoners live the normal life in prison.

Would throw them farthest from their home, moving them from jail to jail.

If such a thing had been known to a chief intelligence officer or a commander in my shift, a commission of inquiry would have been appointed, supporting the policewomen.

Instead they tried to whitewash the story.

Shut up.

Did not support the unfortunate girls.

Prison commanders wanted to buy silence and got into a situation where prisoners allowed themselves to throw inappropriate sentences and hints at the guards and in some cases, they said, even touch them.

In some wings very frightening relationships have formed.

The poor girls are imprisoned in the wing, and prisoners say to them, 'I asked you to work here, you work for me.'

I want to see how the commanders would react if these were their daughters.

After all, anywhere else in the country would have been shaking. "

"I for much less than that dismissed a chief intelligence officer. I once came with my deputy to visit Gilboa Prison, and suddenly I see crates of apples outside the prison. I asked what it was? And they said someone from the Palestinian Authority came in the car and brought the fruits to the security prisoners. I disciplined and dismissed him. "

"No food items from the outside are strictly allowed in the prison. The prisoners have the food they receive from the prison service, and their food board is improved by all accounts. They have a prison library and Red Cross visits that give them clothes and equipment, Because a terrorist who has been sentenced to 20 life sentences, what exactly does he find out every Monday and Thursday with his lawyer.They also get the opportunity to study at the Open University.

"At the time, I was waging a war of attrition over curricula. I thought it was wrong for terrorists to study chemistry and biology and professions funded by the Palestinian Authority to help them build explosive devices. Or the parents of a criminal prisoner will not deposit money in the canteen, he will not be able to buy himself very basic things, but the terrorists in the prison have an open expense account with the help of the authority.

"What is it, people who murdered boys and babies and injured them with batons and axes go to a holiday camp? It terrifies the public and rightly so. Bereaved families keep talking about it. And it also reduces deterrence. The terrorists know they are carrying out an attack and go to jail on reasonable terms. Going to sit in a pit with mice and rats until your last day, you'll think 80 times if committing an offense.

"A terrible omission."

Gilboa Prison (Photo: Flash 90, None)

"הם אמרו לי בפירוש, אבא שלי רוצה שאצא לעבוד ואני רוצה השכלה. והיו גם מחבלות שיצאו לדקור יהודים והגיעו לכלא כי רצו להשיא אותן בעל כורחן. אם הכלא היה מפחיד אותן יותר מהזקן שרצו לחתן אותן איתו, הן היו חושבות פעמיים. הנה עכשיו פרסמו את תמונת המרצחים מהפיגוע באלעד. הם הרגו אבות מול ילדיהם בגרזינים ועדיין קיבלו סיגריה. זה בלתי נתפס. הרוצח של נחשון וקסמן ז"ל היה עותר סדרתי. בכל פעם שרצה ללמוד או לשפר את התנאים שלו, הוא עתר לבג"ץ. לא היה לו מה להפסיד. פעם אחת נמאס לי.

"אמרתי, 'אגיע כמפקדת הכלא לבית המשפט, אשים את הכל על השולחן, יכול להיות שהשופטים לא מבינים מה הולך בכלא ולמה אסור לאשר למחבל ללמוד ביולוגיה'. הגעתי לאולם וסקרתי בפני השופטת את הפרטים של האיש, שהוא מסוכן ומכווין פח"ע, והשופטת אומרת לי: 'את אולי המפקדת, אבל את לא יכולה לעצור את ההתפתחות של האסירים בכלא'.

"הייתי בהלם, אבל זה לא שבר אותי. כל מה שיכולתי למנוע מהמחבלים, מנעתי. אני זוכרת שקלטתי את המחבל עבאס אל־סייד שתכנן את הפיגוע במלון 'פארק' בנתניה. כשבאתי בליל הסדר הנורא ההוא לכלא, מצאתי שריקות שמחה של המחבלים. ומאוחר יותר הייתי צריכה לערוך לחלאה הזה ראיון. הבן אדם נכנס אליי למשרד קול לגמרי. עם חיוך. אמר לי, אני יודע שפות, אני רוצה להיות דובר האגף. אמרתי לו, שום דובר ושום נעליים, אתה תיקבר אצלי עד יום מותך".

מי אחראי להטבות שהמחבלים מקבלים בכלא?

"זה תהליך. האסירים שובתים, השרים נכנעים, הפוליטיקאים הערבים לוחצים, ולרשות הפלסטינית יש שר האסירים שלוחץ גם מהצד שלו. זה כל פעם עוד קצת ועוד קצת, ובג"ץ מתערב וגם לשב"ס מתאים שיהיה שקט בזירה. הוא לא צריך סערות. אחמד טיבי היה מגיע לכלא ומדבר עם הסוהרים בצורה משפילה בנוכחות האסירים. ציפי לבני הייתה מבקרת את ברגותי, וגם פואד בן אליעזר. הם ישבו איתו שעות. וזה נוגס בסמכויות. נותן למחבלים כוח.

"גם ככה יש להם צ'ק פתוח להגיש עתירות על כל דבר ועניין. הם הולכים לבתי משפט וטוענים שסוהרים גנבו להם חפצים בחיפוש, ואז שופט מתיר לאסיר לעמוד ליד הסוהר, שזה כשלעצמו מצב שפוגע באוטונומיה שלנו. והאסיר מתערב. אומר, נגעת לי בספר הקוראן, דרכת לי על השטיח, ומיד הם מוציאים את זה לתקשורת והרחוב הערבי עולה באש. אני מסתכלת על הארגון שעבדתי בו יותר מ־30 שנה, רואה את פרשת הסוהרות, את הבריחה המבישה מכלא גלבוע, את התנאים הטובים של האסירים הביטחוניים עם הדם על הידיים, ובא לי לבכות".

מה לדעתך צריך לעשות אחרת?

"I think we need to rethink. Disperse the terrorists in the prisons, not let them develop into terrorist cells in groups. Put them in segregation. And when disgusting terrorists arrive at the prison, they have to go for many years of isolation. No visits, no family, no conditions, only an hour "A day trip that they will have all the time in the world to curse the day they carried out the attack, and when their child comes to visit them, the terrorists will say to him, 'Ya Avni, do not do this because it does not pay off.'

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