Prison breakout attempt foiled

Two female Palestinian terrorists try digging a hole through cell floor.

By REBECCA ANNA STOIL
new prison 298 (photo credit: Courtesy Photo)
new prison 298
(photo credit: Courtesy Photo)
A warden in the Sharon Prison's female security prisoners' ward prevented a breakout after the prisoners dug through the floor of their cell early Wednesday morning. Around 2 a.m., the guard was patrolling the security wing when she saw suspicious movements in one of the cells. When she turned on her flashlight, the guard discovered that two prisoners had succeeded in removing one of the tiles in the cell floor, and were digging beneath the tile, gathering the sand beneath the floor. The alert warden called the shift officer at the prison, who removed the two prisoners from the cell and put them in isolation. The two prisoners involved in the breakout attempt were questioned separately by the prison's intelligence officer. Prisons Authority officials said that the prison management worked through the night checking the background to the incident from both a security and an intelligence perspective. There are 100 female security prisoners - including terrorists - in the Sharon Prison, which was established in 1953 in a Taggart fortress that was formerly home to the British Mounted Police. The female security prisoners include representatives of every Palestinian terror organization, and approximately 60% of them are directly responsible for the deaths of Israelis. Only two months ago, another alert Prisons Authority warden frustrated the attempts of two Palestinian terrorists to escape the Damon Prison. In that incident, one of the officers at the Mt. Carmel-area prison noticed during night activities that the two would-be escapees were acting strangely while in their locked cell. The officer continued on his way, but then returned to their cells and kept watch over the suspicious behavior, calling for reinforcements from among the other prison wardens. Entering the cell, the wardens discovered that the two were trying to break through the cell's wall using a pipe that they had recovered from their bathroom facilities. The prisoners had attempted to muffle the noise of the effort using the spongy material that they had removed from their prison-issue mattresses. The reinforcements apprehended the two, and they were removed from the area. The two confessed during questioning that they had tried to escape, saying that the decision was simple, because they had nothing to loose in trying. Both of the would-be escapees are security prisoners and members of the Fatah organization. One, a resident of the Balata Refugee Camp near Nablus, is serving a sentence for shooting at two IDF soldiers. The second, a Kalkilya resident, was arrested after planting an explosive device in the path of an IDF jeep that was patrolling in Kalkilya.