"We will get our hands on the terrorists and they will pay the price," said Prime Minister Naftali Bennett after the shocking terror attack in Elad. The price that As'ad Rifa'i and Subhi Abu Shqeir paid, after committing the murders, though, could be seen in the picture of their arrest: a terrorist with a cigarette in his mouth. The pair of axe men will be put on trial, they will live in prison like pensioners, and will stay in the security wings where "de facto autonomy of the prisoners prevails … allowing them to strengthen their organizational-terrorist identity," according to page seven of a confidential report that was obtained by Israel Hayom and is publicized here for the first time.
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"An example of the damage to security that can be caused as a result of the free hand that is given to security prisoners in running internal affairs can be found in the terror planning that is carried out from the security prisons. As was brought to the knowledge of the committee: since 2016, 14 channels for directing terror attacks have been identified in the prisons!" the report reads. According to additional data from the security forces that reached Israel Hayom, in 2019, 15 terror attacks were planned from the prisons, in 2020 there were 11, and in 2021 the number dropped to five. Since the start of 2022, two terror attacks have been arranged between the prison walls.
The Public Committee for Investigating the Conditions of Security Prisoners was established in June 2018 by then-Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan. Members of the committee, led by Maj. Gen. (ret.) Shlomi Katabi, visited ten prisons and held 40 meetings and conversations with dozens of senior figures from the IPS, the Shin Bet, the IDF, and the Justice Ministry. At the end of 2018, it presented its 80-page report.
In January 2019 the Defense Ministry published a brief summary of the committee recommendations, with the goal of reducing the autonomy that the security prisoners were enjoying in jail. Among other things, the committee recommended putting an end to assigning prisoners to separate wings according to organizational affiliation; canceling the institution of the 'spokesman' [75 percent of the spokesmen were convicted of extremely serious offenses and are – contrary to procedures – involved in assigning prisoners to wings] and replacing it with an alternating representative who doesn't have blood on his hands; reducing the funds that are deposited at the jail for the terrorists and stopping the payments from the Palestinian Authority; and ending the collective external food and cooking purchases.
At a celebratory press conference, Erdan declared that he was adopting the report's main conclusions and that the recommendations would be implemented after being presented to the security cabinet in a meeting that would be held soon. How soon? Three and a half years have passed since, and the soon has been delayed. Delayed by a long time. Erdan spoke a number of times with then-head of the National Security Council Meir Ben-Shabbat, and presented an official request to the NSC secretary to arrange a cabinet meeting, but there was no response.
At the same time, the Justice Ministry claimed that the recommendations would create difficulties and were likely to result in international criticism. The report was then stuck for nine months. In the meantime, the Shin Bet, which accepted most of the recommendations of the Erdan Committee, offered an opinion warning about media coverage that would lead to a regional eruption. At the same time, the frequent elections led to a reduction in the number of cabinet meetings.
Public Security Minister Amir Ohana also demanded that the report's findings be discussed and approved by the cabinet, but he was also rejected. The bottom line, however, is that the cabinet agenda is not set by the NSC head but by the prime minister, and during most of this time that was Binyamin Netanyahu, who avoided holding a discussion regarding the committee recommendations, as he accepted the warnings from the lawyers and the security figures, who preferred to buy more imaginary quiet than creating real change.
Minister Omar Barlev had only just begun his role when he had to deal with the prisoner escape from Gilboa Prison. It was an opportunity to have a cabinet meeting and finally approve the Erdan Committee recommendations, but Prime Minister Bennett chose a particularly original step: the establishment of another committee, the Gilboa Committee, officially named the Government Committee of Investigation for the Security Prisoner Escape from Gilboa Prison.
This is how, for three and a half years, under the guise of "confidentiality," the Erdan Report continued to gather dust. Only a few people were permitted to read it. Knesset members, including members of the Foreign Affairs and Security Committees, who asked to read the report, were met with complete refusal. Is this because the material was heavily classified? It's unclear. It seems that, under the guise of protecting the state's security, the public officials, and senior Prison Service and Shin Bet figures, don't want us to know that the writing was on the wall, shining in bright red. Israel Hayom succeeded in obtaining the full report, and we are quoting sections of it here for the first time.
Revolving doors
As mentioned, despite the long time that had passed, most of the committee recommendations weren't implemented. And so, the Israeli prison continues to be a terror incubator, as is also demonstrated by the high number of freed prisoners who took part in the last wave of terror. This is how Mohammed Abu al-Kiyan, a released security prisoner from the Negev town of Hura, murdered four Israelis in a terror attack in Beersheba. This is how Diaa Hamarsheh, a former prisoner from the village of Ya'bad next to Jenin, murdered five people in a terror attack in Bnei Brak. This is how Ibrahim Ighbariah, one of two terrorists from Umm el-Fahm who murdered two Border Policemen in Hadera, also acquired seniority in an Israeli jail.
And this is how, last March, the former prisoner and administrative detainee, Wassim Assayed, murdered a Moldovan worker in Jerusalem, and during his interrogation, it was discovered that he also murdered the Kaduri couple in 2019 in Armon Hanatziv. At least two attempted terror attacks by former prisoners can be added to this list, all in a mere three months. All of these terrorists were convicted of relatively light security offenses, sat in jail for a short period of up to four years, and after being freed from prison became murderous terrorists. So, what exactly is happening behind the prison walls that turn prisons into terrorist training camps?
"You take someone who doesn't have an ideology and a security background and put him among the security prisoners. It leads people to become terrorists," says A, who was freed from prison a number of years ago and moved away from the world of terror and crime. "Why are Israeli citizens put with people from the territories? Even if Israeli citizens made a security mistake, it's an embarrassment and a disaster to put them there. It will only lead to more terror attacks."
A is an Arab-Israeli from the north, who at a young age became a dealer of drugs smuggled from Lebanon. After drugs, he got involved with weapons, until he was caught and convicted of assisting a terror organization. When he reached Gilboa Prison, he was asked, as is standard, to declare which terror organization he belonged to, so he would be placed in the appropriate wing. The security prisoners (excluding women and minors) are divided into wings according to the organization they belong to. Today there are around 4,550 security prisoners, of which around 3,900 are Palestinians. Most of them belong to Fatah and Hamas.
A refused to declare allegiance to one of the organizations and claimed that his actions were criminal rather than nationalist. Since he had been convicted of security offences, he was in any case placed in a security wing. From that moment, he was forbidden from making direct contact with the prison staff.
"What a disaster if a prisoner speaks with the prison staff independently of the 'spokesperson' chosen by the prisoners in the wing. It's a state within a state. I wrote to the administration and requested a transfer because I didn't want to live with those bastards. I had to deliver the request via the 'spokesman.' He opened it and read it. It nearly resulted in murder. They only stopped when I threatened to harm their families. Today the IPS doesn't know how to run the prison without the spokesmen, but the role needs to be canceled." He's not prepared to reveal the name of the 'spokesman' who threatened him in Gilboa Jail. "I'm not a snitch. When an intelligence officer took me to the clinic and tried to get information out of me, I refused."
So, who are these spokesmen? And how did they become the supreme rulers in jail? The idea of elected prisoner representatives is anchored in the Fourth Geneva Convention. Although the State of Israel doesn't formally recognize security prisoners as prisoners of war, over the years, it has implemented elements of this convention.
Over the years, the status of the 'spokesmen' was slowly established following hunger strikes by security prisoners, until official recognition was obtained. Clause 4 of the Prison Service Order 03.02.00 – rules in relation to security prisoners – says: "for the purpose of dealing with prisoners' ongoing problems and delivering the prison administration's instructions and guidelines to the prisoners, a spokesman for each wing shall be chosen from among the prisoners. The choice of spokesman requires the approval of the prison commander."
Alongside this, prison orders limit the authority of the 'spokesman,' forbid his free movement between the cells and the wings, forbid him from being involved in allocating prisoners to a wing, and forbid the prison administration from granting him special privileges. In practice, the Erdan Committee found that "the spokesman is the almost exclusive mediator between the security prisoners and the prison administration…contrary to orders, the spokesmen are involved in assignment and placement of the prisoners in the wing."
The committee found that there are also assistant spokesmen and organizational representatives, and, contrary to orders and without supervision, all of them move between the wings. For example, the report found that Abbas al-Sayyid, responsible for planning the terror attacks at the Park Hotel and the Sharon Mall, in which 35 Israelis were murdered, was the Hamas representative at the Ramon Prison.
The committee declared that "prisoners who are clear 'terror symbols' must not serve in any position vis-à-vis the prison administration. In its current formulation, the role of the 'spokesman' is the main tool in the hands of the terror organizations for establishing control over security prisoners and for creating de facto autonomy in the prisons. Over the years, the strengthening of the position of the spokesman has led to a blurring of the boundaries between prison administration and the spokesmen, which finds expression in joint administration on a range of issues in the wing."
The committee recommends cancelling the position of spokesmen in its current guise and replacing it with alternating prisoners and a person on duty, who will only be in contact with the prison administration on issues that relate to the wing itself and under no circumstances on topics touching specifically on one of the prisoners."
The fourth chapter of the report includes data that hasn't been published until today. Out of 61 'spokesmen' in the different security wings: 15 spokesmen sentenced to at least one life imprisonment; eight were sentenced to 25 years or more; eight were sentenced to 20 years or more; 11 were sentenced to 15 years or more; and four were sentenced to 10 years or more. This means that 75 percent of the 'spokesmen' were convicted of serious security offences, and at least 15 of them are clear terror symbols with blood on their hands.
Spokesmen with blood on their hands
Erdan, according to the discussions of the Gilboa Committee, demanded on a number of occasions that the prison service begin cancelling the role of the 'spokesman,' even before implementing the decision about mixing prisoners that was waiting for cabinet approval. But Erdan's instructions did not make it into the field. The prison service spokesperson denied our request to publish the section regarding the offences for which the spokesmen were convicted, or to send us the names of the current spokesmen. "There is reason to fear that disclosure of information regarding the identity of the security wing spokesmen will cause actual harm to state security and will disrupt the proper functioning of a public authority. This fact is anchored in the decision of the district court from 2021," the prison spokesperson said.
This decision was made in response to a freedom of information request made by the organization Lavi, during which the IPS announced that those convicted of deadly offenses were still serving as spokesmen. "The IPS refuses to reveal the names of the terrorist leaders, who are endowed practically with the authority to manage the security wings," says Adv. Avichay Buaron, who represented Lavi in the petition. "The names of the spokesmen are known to terrorists and their families, but the IPS tries to hide these 'secrets,' which are known to every terrorist, from Israeli citizens, under the guise of security and with the courts closing their eyes."
Despite the attempt to hide their identities, we succeeded in discovering some of the names of the 'spokesmen' who served over the years: the most famous of all of them is Samir Kuntar, who murdered the Haran family and two policemen during a terror attack in Nahariya in 1979. He was sentenced to five life sentences and released from prison in exchange for the return of the bodies of captured soldiers.
Another 'spokesman' is the terrorist Walid Daka, an Israeli citizen who kidnapped and murdered the soldier Moshe Tamm, was sentenced to life imprisonment and served as a 'spokesman' in a number of prisons. Basel Bisri, a Fatah activist from Nablus, served for ten years as the spokesman in Ktsi'ot Prison. He was convicted of planning the 2002 terror attack in Neve Sha'anan, in which four Israelis were murdered. The Israeli public discovered him when the Balad MK Basel Ghattas was filmed smuggling cell-phones to security prisoners during a meeting with Bisri in 2016.
In addition, Tawfiq Abu Naim, a leading activist in Hamas's military wing, was the 'spokesman' at Nafha Prison. He was convicted of planning many terror attacks, leading to the deaths of dozens of Israelis, but he was freed from prison after 23 years. In prison he was very close with Yahya Sinwar, who was the most powerful leader in prison, and was removed in spite of him. The status and the authority that the two garnered in prison was a springboard for them when they were released in the Shalit exchange deal: Sinwar was promoted to Hamas leader in the Gaza strip, and Abu Naim to the head of Hamas's security mechanisms.
Spokesmen with blood on their hands are still active today. The IPS negotiates with them and even supplies them with transportation for consultations with terrorists in other prisons. For example, this is what happened after the escape from Gilboa Prison, after which it was decided to disperse the Islamic Jihad prisoners and not to allow them to remain in the same wings. The prisoners launched a hunger strike in protest against the stricter conditions.
According to a story in Haaretz, there were negotiations between the administration of Hadarim Prison and a representative of the prisoners. Tabaat Mardawi, the prisoners' representative, a senior figure in Islamic Jihad, was taken from prison in order to meet with another senior figure in the organization, who was in isolation in Kishon Prison, to discuss the planned arrangement between the terrorists and the IPS. Mardawi planned nine different suicide bombings, leading to the murder of 20 Israelis. How can it be that, outside of prison, Israel refuses to negotiate with Hamas and Islamic Jihad, but inside prison everything is allowed?
Criticism from the left as well
Alongside the criticism from the right about the role of the "spokesman," which strengthens the terrorist organizations, there is also criticism from the left. "There is no doubt that the recognition of the role of 'spokesman' is a political achievement for the prisoners, who want – rightly in my opinion – to be recognized as political prisoners, prisoners of war," says Adv. Abir Bakar from Akko. "But what happens regarding topics for which there isn't a consensus among the prisoners? Does the individual have to give up on his desire for the sake of everyone else? What happens when a prisoner doesn't want to belong to an organization?"
In 2015, Bakar presented a petition regarding a case exactly like this, when Abdullah Zoabi, who was convicted of security offenses, requested to move to the criminal wing. During the hearing it became clear that the prisoner had attempted to make requests to the prison administration, but the 'spokesman' hadn't delivered them. Judge Elyakim Rubinstein was disturbed by the procedure. "Is it conceivable that the wing 'spokesman' is the censor for individual prisoner requests?" he asked, and he made the IPS place the following signs in all security wings: "Every prisoner in the prison is permitted to personally approach the officer of the wing or his replacement without [the request] going through the prisoner representative in the wing. The approach to the officer of the wing on personal matters connected to the prisoners should be as confidential as necessary."
We asked the IPS if the signs were still there. "On the basis of the Supreme Court decision, the procedure was updated, in which it was determined that in the framework of the initial interview that is carried out with each prisoner by the wing director, it will be clarified to him that he is permitted to approach the wing director independently at any time," was their response. "This step makes the hanging of signs, which are defaced by new prisoners, and whose replacement costs the tax-payers money, redundant."
Following the Supreme Court order and the Erdan Report, has something changed in practice? The shocking story of the young Arab-Israeli woman who escaped to Syria in order to marry an ISIS fighter and to become a martyr in a jihadi operation, shows that it hasn't. The young woman returned disappointed to Israel after discovering that her intended groom was already married. She was detained upon landing, put on trial, and convicted of security and violent offences. "I met her in Damon Prison," Bakar says.
"Since I represent many victims of sexual crimes, I noticed something strange in her behavior. When I investigated it became clear, both from the welfare authorities and from her, that she had been sexually abused at home, and that she travelled to Syria in order to escape. Despite the fact that there is a painful story with a difficult social background, the IPS policy doesn't allow the rehabilitation of security prisoners, which is another serious issue in and of itself. A security prisoner never meets someone who can rehabilitate them, except in the case of suicide. In this case, in light of the moderation of her extremist ideology, and in light of her social background, I demanded that she meet with a social worker."
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When Bakar met with the prisoner after the meeting with the social worker, she was disturbed by what she had told her: "Abir, now the entire wing knows that my father abused me. "It became clear that the 'spokeswoman' of the security prisoners sat in on the meeting between the social worker and my client," Bakar says. "How is it possible to treat someone and to expect them to be open-hearted, when the person who controls them and threatens them is listening? It's important to understand that this happened during the last year."
This 'spokeswoman' is Marach Bakir, an Arab from East Jerusalem who in 2015, when she was a minor, stabbed a policeman and lightly injured him. When the court discovered that the 'spokeswoman' was present in the meetings between the prisoner and the social worker, the judge ordered that a new meeting be held without her being present. "I took this prisoner as a project and after a long process I succeeded in obtaining her early release, and today she is under supervision at a closed rehabilitation and therapeutic facility."
Conclusions can't be drawn from the optimistic end to the story of a single prisoner. The IPS, supported by the Shin Bet and the political echelon, continues to provide autonomy to security prisoners. This week MK Orit Strock proposed a piece of legislation to anchor the conclusions of the Erdan Report in law. Maybe following the events of recent months, the State of Israel will internalize that surrendering to pressure from terrorists buys temporary quiet, but Israeli citizens are paying for it dearly in blood.
An IPS statement on the issues raised by Israel Hayom said, "The Katabi Report, which was placed at the desk of then Minister for Internal Security Erdan, was presented for approval by the political cabinet but was never discussed. Upon beginning her role as head of the IPS, Major-Gondar Katy Perry approached the relevant bodies and frequently recommended that a discussion be held on the significance of the report and its implementation. Following the request of the commissioner, two meetings were held in the framework of the Internal Security Committee led by MK Meirav Ben-Ami. In parallel, the commission requested that a discussion be held with the political cabinet. Until now a discussion about the issue has not been held."
