Member of Bat Ayin Jewish underground released from prison 2 years early

Ofer Gamliel was sentenced in 2002 to 15 years for a bomb plot at an east Jerusalem girls’ school.

By DANIEL K. EISENBUD
Man in handcuffs - illustrative (photo credit: INGIMAGE / ASAP)
Man in handcuffs - illustrative
(photo credit: INGIMAGE / ASAP)
Ofer Gamliel, who was sentenced to a 15-year prison term for a failed 2002 bomb plot against an Arab girls’ school in the capital, was released from prison on Sunday – more than two years before the conclusion of his sentence.
Gamliel’s early release comes after the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) blocked previous attempts by the member of the radical Bat Ayin Jewish underground group for early release, citing concerns that he remained a danger to the public.
Gamliel and accomplice Shlomi Dvir, both from the Bat Ayin settlement located in Gush Etzion, were arrested after security personnel intercepted and defused a bomb intended to destroy a girls’ school in Jerusalem’s Abu Tor neighborhood, records state.
Following their trial, both men were convicted for planning to detonate the bomb – transported in a wagon, and containing diesel fuel and metal bolts – to kill the students and passersby.
The Bat Ayin organization was founded by radical Jewish members of the settlement during the second intifada as a means of carrying out revenge terrorist attacks against Arabs.
In 2009, Gamliel was granted a temporary furlough when former interior minister Eli Yishai asked the Prisons Service to release him after his seven-year- old son, Yair, was wounded by an ax-wielding Palestinian terrorist in Bat Ayin.
Gamliel and Dvir unsuccessfully applied for early parole in 2012 and 2013 after expressing remorse for their actions, records state.
Dvir is scheduled to be brought before the parole board in the near future, a prison official said.