Some 300 attempts to escape from prison have been thwarted over the past decade, Prisons Service Commissioner Katy Perry said Monday at a meeting of the Knesset Committee on Public Security.
Last week, six terrorists escaped from Gilboa Prison, four of whom have since been caught.
Since the incident, Perry said she has taken steps to regain control over security prisoners, prevent attempts to escape and regain deterrence. She told the MKs she had moved key security prisoners to other jails, added more staff and formed a task force that has been working with engineers to examine the structure of prisons and what lies underneath them.
The task force will work in collaboration with the IDF’s elite Yahalom engineering unit, which specializes in tunnels, among other things. The team’s goal is to check the structural foundations of all prisons and to examine every cell and wing for suspicious underground activity.
“Even if mistakes were made and there was negligence, most of our staff are engaged in holy work in an uncomfortable workplace,” Perry said.
Right-wing MKs urged Perry, who was appointed by former Likud minister Amir Ohana, to immediately remove perks from security prisoners. She said she was prepared to reevaluate the benefits such prisoners are given.
“Stop giving prisoners meat and baklava and a spokesman,” Religious Zionist MK Itamar Ben-Gvir said.
Earlier, Ben-Gvir shouted at Joint List MK Osama Saadi for warning Perry against using collective punishment against security prisoners following the escape.
Another uproar took place in the committee when Israel Police Insp.-Gen. Kobi Shabtai called violence in mixed Jewish-Arab cities in May an “intifada.” Saadi and Joint List MK Ahmad Tibi said Shabtai had ignored that Arab were harmed by Jews in the riots. Ben-Gvir and rebel Yamina MK Amichai Chikli said the police had not acted forcefully enough.
When Shabtai said the violence was quelled with no deaths, Tibi named an Arab who was killed, Ben-Gvir said there were Jews who died in the violence, and they asked the commissioner to correct himself. Shabtai said he was referring to casualties among his security forces.
Religious Zionist Party MK Orit Struck asked that the term security prisoners stop being used and be replaced by “incarcerated terrorists.”
The Public Security Committee, which was split off from the broader Internal Affairs and Environment Committee in August, is headed by MK Merav Ben-Ari (Yesh Atid).
The meeting began with a decision to open a subcommittee for classified public security affairs. The subcommittee will be chaired by Ben-Ari and will include MKs Meir Yitzhak Halevi (New Hope) and Ruth Wasserman Lande (Blue and White).
Public Security Minister Omer Bar Lev presented his plan for his ministry. He began by commenting on the broad role the Public Security Ministry has in fighting the COVID-19 crisis, as it is responsible to enforce the government’s decisions. He said the fragile political situation and multiple elections had made it extremely difficult for the ministry to function properly.
Bar Lev stressed the importance of the riots surrounding Operation Guardian of the Walls in May and connected them to the issue of crime and gang violence in the Arab community.
“During the events of Operation Guardian of the Walls, it became clear that crimes and violent events do not begin and end just with the criminal acts themselves, since a parallel is created between these incidents and nationalistic incidents whose goal is to threaten the country’s very existence,” he said. “This was a strategic surprise for the Israel Police, the Shin Bet [Israel Security Agency], the Israeli government and all Israeli citizens.”
On Friday, Bar Lev said he would form a commission of inquiry into the prison escape. The inquiry, which he said was approved by Attorney-General Avichai Mandelblit, will be headed by a retired Supreme Court justice, pending government approval.