Prison breakout attempt foiled

Two female Palestinian terrorists caught trying to dig 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 two prisoners dug through the floor of their cell early Wednesday morning. Around 2 a.m., the guard patrolling the security wing saw suspicious movements in one of the cells. When she turned on her flashlight, she discovered that the prisoners had succeeded in removing one of the tiles in the floor, and were digging beneath it. The warden called the shift officer at the prison, who removed the two prisoners from the cell and put them in isolation. The prisoners involved in the breakout attempt were questioned separately by the prison's intelligence officer. Prisons Authority officials said that the prison's management worked through the night researching the incident from both security and intelligence perspectives. 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 inmates include representatives of every Palestinian terror organization, and approximately 60 percent of them are directly responsible for the deaths of Israelis. Only two months ago, another Prisons Authority warden frustrated the attempts of two Palestinian terrorists to escape from Damon Prison. In that incident, one of the officers at the Mt. Carmel area prison noticed during night activities that two inmates were acting strangely while in their locked cell. The officer later returned to their cell and kept watch over the suspicious behavior, calling for reinforcements from among the other prison wardens. Entering their cell, the wardens discovered that the two were trying to break through the wall using a pipe they had recovered from the bathroom. The prisoners had attempted to muffle the noise of the effort using spongy material removed from their 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 their decision was simple - they had nothing to lose in trying. Both of the would-be escapees from Damon Prison are 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.