Occupied Jerusalem -

For the second day in a row, the Israeli security forces continue to search for the six Palestinian prisoners who went missing after escaping from Gilboa prison at dawn on Monday.

And the occupation has deployed about 300 military checkpoints throughout historic Palestine in search of them, amid secrecy over the course of the investigation and the scenes of the escape, according to a judicial order prohibiting publication of the operation.

In words that summarized the scene of the escape and disappearance of the six prisoners: Zakaria Zubeidi, Munadil Anfaat, Muhammad Ardah, Yaqoub Qadri, Ayham Kammaji, and Mahmoud Ardah, the official Israeli radio quoted the head of the Police Operations Department, Shimon Nahmani, as saying that "the investigation has reached a dead end, we are doing In chasing the unknown, the police have no clue or clue about the process of chasing escaped prisoners."

The head of the police's operations department added, "We checked dozens of points and intelligence information, and carried out dozens of operations, and the pursuit is not progressing. It takes a lot of patience to form a clearer picture."

According to a statement by the military official, the police do not rule out the hypothesis that the prisoners are planning to cross the border into the Gaza Strip, and said that their forces are ready for the possibility of confrontation with the six prisoners.

"The police are ready to drop special forces from helicopters at any time and place, and even conducted a maneuver on Monday in this regard. The concept is that if we come into contact with the fugitive prisoners, it will be a difficult event," he added.


discreet and isolated

On orders from the highest security levels, the Israeli police are continuing the strict measures in the country and are acting on the strict working premise that the six prisoners will attempt to carry out an attack against Israeli targets.

In this context, the occupation deployed 720 police patrols throughout the country, while the Israeli army reinforced its forces in the Jenin governorate and along the apartheid wall in the northern West Bank.

Within the state of emergency and procedures for secrecy over investigations, the Israeli Prison Service isolated Gilboa Prison - where 400 Palestinian prisoners are held - from the world, after they were held for long hours in buses, in preparation for their evacuation and distribution to various prisons, but this did not happen.

With information received that some prisoners were aware of the escape plan and digging the tunnel under Gilboa prison, and in an attempt to find out the scenes of the operation, the newspaper "Israel Today" reported that the Shin Bet (Israeli Intelligence) is conducting investigations with the leaders of the captive movement in various sections of the prison. Gilboa, prohibiting family visits to prisoners and prohibiting meetings with lawyers.

Israeli policemen stand in front of Gilboa prison, from which the six prisoners escaped, which is considered the most fortified in Israel (AFP)

Investigations and inspections

The Shin Bet subjected all prisoners to a search, and carried out a thorough engineering examination in all prison rooms. Section (2) and room (5) in which the six prisoners were held were kept closed, while 30 prisoners from the same section, who were in direct contact with the prisoners, were transferred. The fleeing, to an unknown destination, according to Palestinian sources concerned with the affairs of the captive movement.

In this atmosphere, thousands of border guards and Israeli police were deployed in the Bisan area and the Jordan Valley, where 89 checkpoints were set up in different locations near Gilboa Prison to locate the six prisoners.

According to the official announcements, the Shin Bet interrogated the prisoners and the various elements and persons who had contact with them inside and outside the prison, to examine whether the six had contacts with outside parties inside the prison to help them escape.

The published information indicates that the escaped prisoners changed their clothes immediately upon exiting the tunnel opening.

According to the security announcements, a cell phone was found during searches in the town of Bisan, near the border with Jordan, 10 kilometers away from Gilboa Prison.


Estimates and scenarios

And the Hebrew website "Wala" suggested - based on Israeli police sources - that "the prisoners, after escaping from prison, were divided into 3 groups and scattered, with some of them walking on foot for a distance of 3 kilometers before they got into a car that was waiting for them."

Less than a day after the escape - according to the site - the Israeli security forces mobilized the "anti-terror unit" to the city of Bisan, near the Jordanian border, "to carry out searches for two suspicious people who wandered suspiciously in agricultural lands and nearby forested areas", without Disclosure of the results of the inspection process.

The website quoted a senior police source as saying, "The security forces still do not know the whereabouts of the prisoners who escaped. The goal is to seize the hand and arrest the six prisoners, but it must be said that a lot of patience is required here."

The time that has passed reinforces police assessments that the six prisoners who escaped have been separated and that some crossed the Green Line with the help of cars waiting for them, and it is likely that they fled to Jordan.

However, there are no confirmed indications or information from the Israeli army, which puts before it several scenarios, including the destination of the six prisoners in the Gaza Strip, Jordan, Syria or Lebanon.


Failures and suspicions

On the other hand, the jailers' failures in not discovering any traces of tunneling for a whole year did not stop at the prison foundations, which were spaced apart.

The jailers did not notice the prisoners' escape, which was documented by the surveillance cameras, as the police suspect that some of the warders were involved in helping the prisoners escape, according to Maariv newspaper.

Israeli media revealed that the engineering plan for Gilboa prison was published on the Internet by the architects' office that participated in its design and construction, including Section 5 and Wing 2 from which the prisoners escaped, where the design of the prison, which was built in 2004, was within everyone's reach.

According to the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, it is not known whether the prison plan helped the prisoners escape.

But it quoted a senior official in the Israeli Prisons Authority as saying that "publishing plans to build a security prison is a failure to secure information, which was allowed by the Prison Authority."