They go back to prison.
Almost two weeks after the spectacular escape of six Palestinian prisoners from an Israeli high-security penitentiary, the last two fugitives on the run were arrested in the occupied West Bank during an operation by Israeli forces, they announced on Sunday.
On September 6, on the eve of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, six Palestinian inmates jailed for anti-Israel violence fled from the top-security Gilboa prison in northern Israel.
They used a tunnel dug under a sink leading to a hole in the ground outside the penitentiary.
The six escapees, immediately qualified as “heroes” on the Palestinian side and beyond in the Arab world, have become Israel's most wanted men, which has deployed military reinforcements and drones to try to find them.
Kidnapping and assassination of an Israeli settler
The weekend after this escape, which recalls in its modus operandi the American film "Shawshank Redemption" ("The escapees" or "In the shadow of Shawshank", in French) and is described as "Great escape" by the press Palestinian, Israeli forces arrested four of the fugitives in the area of Nazareth, an Arab city in northern Israel. The authorities had notably arrested and then started to question Mahmoud Ardah, a member of the Islamic Jihad imprisoned since 1996 and considered to be the mastermind of the operation, as well as Zakaria al-Zoubeidi, a former head of the armed wing of the Fatah party for the Palestinian camp of Jenin, bastion of the armed rebellion.
Early this Sunday, the military announced the arrest in Jenin, West Bank, of the last two fugitives, Ayham Kamamji and Munadel Infeiat, members of the Islamic Jihad, a Palestinian armed Islamist movement, in a joint operation with special units anti-terrorism. Originally from Kafr Dan, near Jenin, Ayman Kamamji was arrested in 2006 and sentenced to life imprisonment for the kidnapping and murder of Eliahou Asheri, a young Israeli settler. Munadel Infeiat was awaiting his conviction after having been imprisoned in the past for his activities within the Islamic Jihad.
In a joint operation with ISA and @IsraelPolice, we have just arrested the last 2 terrorists who had escaped from Gilboa Prison
Thanks to precise intelligence work, the 2 terrorists surrendered after being surrounded by the forces of the order.
- IDF (@Tsahal_IDF) September 19, 2021
The two men "are currently being questioned," the IDF said in a message to the press.
"The security forces surrounded the building that housed the terrorists who surrendered unopposed and unarmed," the army added in a statement.
"Two men who had helped them were also arrested," she said.
Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett praised the security forces on Twitter for "this impressive, smart and swift operation."
תם ונשלם.
כל ששת המחבלים נתפסו ויחזרו לכלא, במבצע מרשים, מתוחכם ומהיר של השב״כ, המשטרה וצה״ל.
אני רוצה להודות לכוחות הביטחון שפעלו, לילות כימים, גם בשבת ובחג, כדי להביא את האירוע לידי סיום.
את מה שהתקלקל - אפשר לתקן.
- Naftali Bennett בנט (@naftalibennett) September 19, 2021
Palestinian prisoners began digging their tunnel in Gilboa prison in December 2020, lawyers for two of the arrested escapees said. “Mahmoud
(Ardah)
told me he started digging in December. This is what he also told Israeli investigators, ”said his lawyer, Raslan Mahajana, after visiting him in detention on Wednesday. The prisoners used spoons, plates and even the handle of a kettle to dig their tunnels, their advice added, presenting Mahmoud Ardah, at the heart of the Islamic Jihad communication campaign in support of the "heroes" who took to the field. escaped, like the architect of this operation.
On social networks, the spoon has established itself as the new symbol of "liberation" for Palestinians, who take pictures of themselves with the utensil in hand in front of Palestinian flags. This phenomenon has spread outside the Palestinian territories, where the object is brandished in demonstrations in support of the many prisoners held in Israel. In Kuwait, artist Maitham Abdal carved a fist that closes on the utensil, a work he called “Spoon of Freedom”. The Israeli media also followed the plot twists of the Palestinian escapees, fearing that one of them would carry out an anti-Israel attack on the run, and questioning the security at Gilboa prison which is the subject of an internal investigation. .
