How the Palestinian Prisoners’ Escape Uncovered The Failure of Israeli Security System

The escape from prisons has always been an impressive story that attracts great attention. Yet, the “Prison Break” incident from the Gilboa Israeli jail didn’t come up from a film producer’s imagination to impress the spectators, nor was it a new episode of the “Prison Break” famous series. Rather, it was a true unprecedented escape incident of six Palestinians from a high-security Israeli prison to embrace freedom. 

The Guardian newspaper reported, “Six Palestinian prisoners escaped from one of the country’s most secure prisons using a rusty spoon in an unprecedented jailbreak.”

It added, “The Israeli media reported that the prisoners spent several months working on their tunnel using a spoon which they had kept hidden behind a poster in their cell.”

Moreover, Reuters described Monday 6 September’s event as “a Hollywood-style escape that left their jailors peering through a hole in the floor of a cell, and had Palestinians celebrating in the streets.”

BBC quoted an Israeli Prison Service official describing the escape as "a major security and intelligence failure". Palestinian militant groups hailed it as "heroic".

Katy Perry, the commissioner of the Israel prisons service, said “The escapers exploited a flaw in the prison’s structural design, exposing a gap behind a wall, rather than tunneling out as the initial reports suggested.”

She added, “From our initial investigation, it appears that there was no digging; rather, a plate that covered the space was lifted out of place.” 

Additionally, Reuters claimed that “Prime Minister Naftali Bennett's office said he had spoken with Israel's internal security minister and "emphasized that this is a grave incident that requires an across-the-board effort by the security forces" to find the escapees.

 

'Prison Break'

Omer Barlev, Israel’s public security minister, suggested to The Guardian that “the men may have already reached the West Bank after the escape was discovered at 3 am on Monday morning.”

“There was very precise planning, very detailed, and therefore there was probably external assistance. We’re examining [it] at the moment. We will catch the fugitives.”

The BBC explained how the Palestinians could escape by stating that “The men are believed to have dug a hole in the floor of their cell at Gilboa prison, then crawled through a cavity and tunneled beneath the outer wall.” It added “Officials were alerted by farmers who noticed them running through fields. 

The alarm was raised at Gilboa Prison, a high-security facility in northern Israel known as "The Safe", when authorities received reports from local farmers about "suspicious figures" in nearby agricultural fields.”

The Palestinians are a former leader of the militant group Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade and five Islamic Jihad members.

The Israeli Prime Minister Bennett said he is receiving constant updates on the prison break, which occurred hours before the Jewish New Year celebrations.

 

Iron Dome failure

The Iron Dome is considered one of the most important manifestations of the security failure of the Israeli occupation.

The Israeli "Iron Dome" failed to intercept most of the rockets of the Palestinian resistance in the Gaza Strip during the confrontation that extended from May 10-21, 2021.

Military and Strategic Affairs magazine published a study that stated that the Iron Dome has a "saturation point" to repel a number of missiles, after which it can no longer resist.

The study made it clear that all missiles fired after this "saturation point" would be able to cross without an interception and cause damage, which is what Israel hides as part of its war strategy and refuses to disclose.

The study published by the security expert, "Yiftach Shapir" from the Israeli National Security Center in early May 2013, stated that Tel Aviv deliberately conceals the extent of the dome's ability to confront missiles and only says that it repels 90% of them, which is not true.

It said: The dome fails to counter (almost completely) short-range missiles (5-7 km) and those that are launched horizontally at a range of 15-17 km.

Professor at Brock University in Canada, "Michael Armstrong", also talked about the weakness that appeared as a defect in the Iron Dome and was realized by the resistance, which is the arrival of the interception system to the "saturation point".

He told the New York Times on May 13, 2021, that he analyzed the last resistance rockets on Israel in May 2021, and found that the Dome "can only handle a certain number of attacks at once."

 

Security and Intelligence Defeat

Hani al-Masri, director of the Palestinian Center for Policy Research and Strategic Studies, Masarat, said that “While Israel uses all measures to “spy on Palestinians – including mobile phones, social media accounts, and all technologies, as a superior intelligence agency”, there are “loopholes in the system” when Palestinians carry out successful armed resistance operations.

Aljazeera report elucidated that “Despite the increased presence of Israeli forces in Palestinian neighborhoods, and despite the state’s advanced security systems, Israel has not been able to control such sporadic attacks, raising questions about the effectiveness of the state’s security apparatus.”

According to a study entitled “Israel’s Strategic Vulnerability” By George Friedman geopolitical forecaster and strategist on international affairs.

The study explained that “Israel’s greatest strategic weakness has been that its national security needs outstripped its capacity in many areas, from production to manpower. It, therefore, needed the patronage of a major power, creating the most serious vulnerability Israel had – if its interest diverged from the United States (its main patron since after 1967) it would be caught in a dangerous position.“

 

The Israeli setback against Palestinian Resistance in Gaza prompted Defense Minister Benny Gantz to schedule an urgent visit to Washington on June 3, 2021, to request military financial support.

The American “Axios” website revealed that “in order to develop the missile defense system, Israel requests one billion dollars in urgent military assistance from the United States,” according to a statement by Senator Lindsey Graham to the American “Fox News” channel and Israeli officials.

Ofer Zalzberg, a senior analyst for Israel/Palestine at the International Crisis Group, said “The fact that most of the Palestinians who carried out attacks over the past two years were unaffiliated to any particular movement makes it “much harder to collect intelligence about them”. 

He continued “Security measures cannot be 100 percent foolproof, especially when attackers are willing to sacrifice their lives,” he told Al Jazeera.