The premier was “receiving regular updates regarding the search efforts for the terrorists,” said a statement. Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett called the escape “a serious event that required a comprehensive effort by all of the security services”. The jail break occurred hours before Israel begins its High Holiday season, starting with Jewish New Year which begins at sundown. The army said its forces were “prepared and deployed” in the West Bank as part of the operation.
The army had in particular been deployed heavily at a crossing point from Israel to Jenin governorate, checking identities of all Palestinian workers seeking to cross, a reporter said. Sniffer dogs were deployed and checkpoints set up in the area surrounding Gilboa. Police, the army and agents from Israel’s Shin Bet internal security agency joined the search, which included aerial surveillance vehicles, officials said. The prison service said all those held at Gilboa over “security offences” are being relocated in case additional escape tunnels have been dug beneath the facility. Gilboa, which opened in 2004 during the second Palestinian intifada, or uprising, is a high-security site where hundreds of Palestinians are detained among other inmates. In footage that recalled the iconic 1994 prison escape film “The Shawshank Redemption,” the service released a video which showed agents inspecting a narrow tunnel beneath a sink and another showing a hole just outside the prison walls. The group includes Zakaria Zubeidi, a former militant leader from the flashpoint city of Jenin in the occupied West Bank, the IPS confirmed in a statement.
The Israel Prison Service said an alert was sounded around 3am (0000 GMT) by locals who spotted “suspicious figures” outside the Gilboa prison in the country’s north. JERUSALEM-Six Palestinians broke out of an Israeli prison Monday through a tunnel dug beneath a sink, triggering a massive manhunt for the group that includes a prominent ex-militant.
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