Dr. Abd al-Hakim Aziz Hanini from the village of Beit Dajan, Nablus governorate, a freed prisoner in the Wafa al-Ahrar deal (the Shalit deal) in 2011, after he spent 18 years in the prisons of the Israeli occupation, when he was arrested in 1993 on charges of working to establish the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades in the West Bank He was sentenced to life in prison, and he was deported, along with 15 prisoners, to Qatar under the Wafaa Al-Ahrar deal, in which Hamas freed 1,027 prisoners from the occupation prisons.
After his liberation, Hanini completed his academic studies.
He obtained a doctorate from Malaysia, and another doctorate from Al-Zaytoonah University in Tunisia, which was about Palestinian prisoners.
In 2018, he published a book entitled "Hamas' Methodology in Foreign Relations: Syria as a Model 2000-2015".
It is in its origin a dissertation in which the author obtained his PhD from the National University of Malaysia in 2016.
The released prisoner, Hanini, had experience in planning and supervising the escape of 24 prisoners from Shatta prison, adjacent to the heavily fortified Gilboa prison, in 1998, which was not completed in its last moments.
The liberated prisoner testified about the escape from Shata prison 6 years ago on the "Witness to the Age" program on Al-Jazeera, for those who wanted to know the details of the operation.
Al Jazeera Net met Hanini to present his reading of the process of liberating 6 prisoners from Gilboa prison, compared to the operation in which he participated in 1998, and any repercussions that may result from the success of the last operation on the conditions of prisoners in prisons and on the confrontations between the Palestinians and the Israeli occupation.
This is the text of the conversation:
Could you first tell the reader about your experience in escaping from Shatta prison?
Our attempt to escape from Shatta prison was not the first incident, nor the last;
The history of the occupation prisons is full of attempts to escape, some of which succeeded and some of which failed, and this confirms that the Palestinian prisoners are freedom seekers, and their struggle is mainly for their freedom and the freedom of their homeland. Freedom not to take advantage of it, even if the success rate is very low.
That is why we resolved to escape from Shata prison, and a total of 24 prisoners, most of us with life sentences, were able to dig a 20-meter-long tunnel at a depth of two and a half meters, from inside the cell to outside the prison wall, and the excavation continued for 77 days. And had it not been for God’s kindness, the operation would have been revealed more than once, given the tight security that was imposed on the section we were in.
On the day of execution, 23 brothers descended at two in the morning inside the tunnel, and three managed to get out safely, but the third brother made a sound with his shoes, and he was supposed to be barefoot like the rest of the prisoners, which drew the attention of the guard dogs from the inner side of the fence, and woke the sleeping guard, and was aborted the operation.
You said that the captive of those with high judgments only cares about escaping from captivity, is that because this captive has nothing to lose?
Undoubtedly, the matter has two sides;
The prisoner aspires to freedom and to get out of the grave, for prison is a cemetery for the living, and also because of the passion of the Palestinian fighter to continue fighting the occupation.
And prisoners with high sentences for life have nothing to lose if the attempt fails, but freedom is worth venturing for.
What is the difference between Shata prison and Gilboa prison?
They are one prison, or two buildings within one wall;
Gilboa prison was originally an army camp next to Shata prison, and then it was converted into a prison, and it now looks like a single fortress.
In terms of security fortifications, there is no difference between them, and they are the most heavily fortified and guarded Israeli prisons.
Based on your experience in escaping, how do you expect the escape from Gilboa Prison to have taken place?
What encourages escaping from Gilboa prison is that the prison is in the Jordan Valley, close to the borders of the West Bank from the side of Jenin city;
From inside the prison we could see the houses in Jenin. After leaving the prison, it will be easy to reach the West Bank, unlike other prisons far from the West Bank. The Jenin area’s soil is closer to clay than sandy, so digging in it is easier because the tunnel does not need supports. to protect it from collapse;
The soil is cohesive.
The other thing is that the location of the cell in the prison may encourage escape. If it is close to the prison wall, this will make the planning of the escape more encouraging, especially by digging the tunnel.
When I say close, I do not mean that it is adjacent to the fence, but rather facing it, and in most cases the distance between the cell and the fence is about 20 meters.
To imagine how tight the fortifications were in this prison;
This distance of 20 meters has 3 barriers of barbed wire, then a fence of smooth concrete that does not allow it to be climbed, and a height of 7 meters, and above it is barbed wire, and guard dogs are spread near it.
There are guard towers and surveillance cameras.
These security fortifications make the task of escaping above ground almost impossible, if not actually impossible, so resorting to digging the underground tunnel was the only option, despite its difficulty.
In the process of our escape, the floor of the cell was made of tiles, unlike the floor of Gilboa Prison, which the occupation prisons administration made of concrete and of different colors, after we tried to escape, so that the process of digging in it was difficult, although removing the slab (measuring 20 centimeters in length and the same width only) that we dug in its surroundings The tunnel took a whole week to remove, at an average of 20 hours of work per day, so that this slab would not be broken and we could put it back in its place every day after digging and it would not appear that it had been removed.
Therefore, our brothers the prisoners in Gilboa prison resorted to digging the tunnel hole inside the bathroom and not in the floor of the room as we did, and they had to cut the iron bars in the bathroom floor to go down to the tunnel.
Israeli security officials said that the liberated prisoners took advantage of the gaps under the prison floor, which saved them from digging the 24-meter tunnel, and contented themselves with digging vertically at the entrance and exit of the tunnel, and this may be true, which made it easier for them to escape.
But how can they cut the iron, with careful inspection in the cells?
Once the security officer in the prison told me, “We will not be able to prevent you from smuggling what you want into the cells, because I am an employee. I focus on my work for 8 hours, and then I do not occupy myself with you or the prison, but you have the full time to think all day and night.”
Therefore, it is not surprising that prisoners are able to bring what they need into their cells, whether it is an iron saw, or even mobile phones, as is usually the case.
Mostly this is done by the guards themselves in exchange for money.
The process of escaping from the heavily fortified Israeli prisons - in the details that is being circulated - seems closer to imagination, as if it were the impossible task and closer to cinematic imagination?
It is indeed an impossible task, had it not been for the success of God Almighty, and the solid will of the prisoners to be freed from captivity, and let the reader imagine that the cells are searched 7 times a day, this is not the sudden inspection that is constantly repeated, and unlike also that the jailer on duty at night inspects the cells every half hour from dungeon window.
So the time to dig and work to escape is what is available between these many search raids, which makes the task very difficult.
And you can imagine that our operation took 77 days of digging in this atmosphere.
The hole at the end of the tunnel from which the six released prisoners were released from Gilboa Prison (Israeli media)
In your estimation, how far is the cell in Gilboa prison from the prison fence?
According to what was reported by the Israeli enemy radio, the cell is 24 meters from the exit hole from the tunnel, and the guard in the watchtower was asleep, which made it easier for them to withdraw without anyone feeling them, and their absence was discovered only after 3 hours, and this is what helped them to disappear .
While our tunnel was 20 meters long, because we had to speed up the escape in 1998 from Shata prison, and go out next to the fence from the outside, because we expected that the tunnel would be discovered after the prison administration suspected the operation.
The third captive who came out of the exit hatch made a sound with his shoes, although the rest were barefoot so as not to make this sound, so the guard dogs sensed us, and began to bark heavily, which alerted the guard on the watchtower, and the operation failed, in addition to that our operation included 24 prisoners, During the Gilboa operation, only 6 prisoners were released.
How might the escape from Gilboa affect the conditions of the prisoners?
Sanctions and reprisals have already begun against the prisoners;
By depriving them of the privileges they enjoyed, and confiscating all their personal belongings, the prison administration also decided to distribute the prisoners of the Islamic Jihad movement to the cells of other organizations.
This measure is met with strong rejection by the prisoners, and protests have already taken place in several prisons, including the Negev prison.
This reaction of the prisoners will put pressure on the occupation not to persist in its punitive measures.
But the prison administration is trying to punish the prisoners with as many retaliatory measures as it can, to relieve itself of embarrassment in front of its people, and to restore some dignity after the scandal that befell it, and with its security capabilities that it claims, with the success of the escape operation.
Does the occupation fear an escalation of the prisoner escape crisis, and a direct confrontation with the Palestinians, or even an uprising inside prisons, which constitutes a real confrontation?
Without a doubt, this fear can be seen from the speeches of many Israeli security officials and politicians.
The possibility of the prisoners confronting the occupation is very likely, and in addition to the open strike, the organizations may resort to the so-called “organization dissolution”, which is what the occupation fears.
What does dissolution mean?
By the grace of God Almighty, the old prisoners were able to achieve their demands through struggle, strikes and confrontation with the occupation forces inside prisons, and among what they achieved was the formation of factions’ organizations inside prisons, and with the knowledge of the prison administration, in the traditional form that we know outside prison, of an organizational and administrative structure, within which elections are normally held. .
For example, in Hamas, we have the “Supreme Leadership Committee of Hamas Prisoners” headed by an elected brother, and the occupation prisons administration knows his name, brother Salama al-Qatawi, from Birzeit, Ramallah, and the occupation administration communicates with him in this capacity to deal with Hamas prisoners.
The same applies to all Palestinian organizations.
This coordination has a common interest between us and the occupation, so to speak;
The prison administration is concerned with maintaining calm and security inside prisons, and it is not in its interest to cause chaos and confrontations.
It is better for it to deal with a few officials of these organizations rather than dealing with about 5,000 prisoners individually.
On the other hand, it is important for the organizations to carry out their organizational work comfortably, and implement their organizational programs without disruption from the occupation;
Therefore, each organization has its own cells, in which political and cultural programs are implemented as it pleases.
The dissolution of the organization threatened by the Islamic Jihad movement is an escalating measure that means chaos and confrontation in all prisons, as every prisoner becomes free to do what he does towards the jailers, and no one controls him or holds him accountable.
The occupation is escalating by distributing the prisoners of jihad among the rest of the organizations, and the jihad movement is escalating by threatening to dissolve the organization.
Israeli officials express their concern over the liquidation of the released prisoners for fear of an escalation of the confrontation with the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, or of their being able to enter the Jenin camp, and thus making it difficult to catch them. What do you think?
We ask God for safety for the liberated prisoners, and in my estimation, the enemy is like a “belly of moose”, as he is afraid of their liquidation, because it may lead to escalation and battles in which he is not concerned at the present time, and the second scenario is also difficult for him, which is that the prisoners be able to reach Jenin camp This will require him to storm the camp and confront the militants, and the occupation has not forgotten its tough battle in Jenin camp in 2002. The best scenario for the occupation is to catch them alive, because it will consider it an achievement.
As for the liberated prisoners, and by virtue of my personal knowledge of some of them, I believe that if they obtain a weapon, they will not surrender themselves alive, and their only option will be to confront them even if they are martyred, and we ask God for their protection and safety. Certainly, such heroes will open homes for them and they will find a warm embrace to protect them from the occupation, and this is our confidence in our people.