Occupied Palestine (QNN)- Six Palestinian prisoners escaped from Israel’s Gilbou prison, a high-security prison, on Monday, Israeli media and police reported.
The reports said the six prisoners, most of them sentenced to life, belonged to the Islamic Jihad movement and one was a former commander in the Fatah party.
According to the reports, the six were imprisoned in the Gilbou prison in the same cell, and tunnelled out of it in the northern occupied Palestine.
This is the opening of the tunnel through which six #Palestinian political prisoners managed last night to escape from the high-security Israeli prison of Gilboa in the north of occupied #Palestine. pic.twitter.com/JAFrb4jMrC
— Quds News Network (@QudsNen) September 6, 2021
“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,” a police spokesman told Israeli Kan Radio.
The Israeli occupation forces were searching for the prisoners and believed they might try to reach the occupied West Bank, Israeli-occupied territories, or the Jordanian border, the Israeli media reported.
Israeli media reports identified one of the prisoners as Zakaria Zubeidi, a former commander of Fatah’s Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in the West Bank city of Jenin.
The others are: Mahmad Aardiya, Muhammed Aardiya, Yakub Kadari, Iham Kamagi, and Mondal Ainfaat.
An official from the Israel Prison Service described the incident as “a major security and intelligence failure.”
In a statement made shortly after the event the Islamic Jihad called the escape as “heroic” and added that it will “shock the Israeli defense system.”
Hamas movement spokesperson Fawzi Barhoum praised the fugitives saying “the escape proves the bravery of these prisoners, achieving freedom despite such strict security measures. It’s a heroic and impressive action.”