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Islamic Jihad warns Israel against ‘collective punishment’ of Palestinian inmates

Tuesday, 07 September 2021 5:38 PM [ Last Update: Tuesday, 07 September 2021 5:50 PM ]

The file photo shows an overview of the Gilbao Prison in the northern part of the occupied territories.

The Islamic Jihad strongly has warned the Israeli regime against trying to punish other Palestinian prisoners over the recent escape of six inmates from a maximum-security Israeli jail.

The Palestinian resistance movement issued the warning in a statement on Tuesday after Palestinian sources revealed that the regime was administering “collective punishment” to prisoners, including some of Jihad’s senior figures, after the jailbreak.

The prisoners, five of whom belong to the group, escaped the Gilbao Prison in the northern part of the occupied territories through an underground tunnel. The facility has earned notoriety as the Israeli version of the Guantanamo prison.

Despite conducting a thorough search for an entire day, the Israeli police service has failed so far to find any clues about the escapees’ current whereabouts.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian Wafa news agency said the regime had begun taking out the embarrassment on other Palestinian inmates through a number of measures.

It has transferred more than a dozen prisoners from Gilbao’s second ward to another Israeli prison and stopped allowing prisoners’ access to television. The regime has also taken five of the Islamic Jihad’s leaders to Gilbao’s interrogation center, and begun rummaging every nook and cranny throughout the prison.

Six Palestinian prisoners escape from Israeli prison, Hamas calls it ‘heroic’

The six cellmates, serving life sentences, reportedly fled through an underground tunnel from the Gilbao Prison in northern Israel, which they had managed to dig over the past few months.

The resistance group said it was monitoring the situation at Israeli prisons, advising Tel Aviv against taking “retaliatory measures” against the prisoners.

The movement said it would not leave its prisoners alone and noted that whatever “Israeli terrorist action” against them was to be met with its due response.

“The Israeli regime should know this that violations targeting the prisoners are our redline,” it said, adding, “We are prepared to and capable of defending our prisoners and have several options at our disposal to do so.”

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