In June 2018 at 8 p.m., then-Channel 20 journalist Liran Levi broke a story that should have caused an earthquake in this little Israel of ours. He exposed a scandal at Gilboa Prison, which which senior prison officials allegedly pimped out young female guards to keep terrorist prisoners happy, allow them to do what they wanted with the women. The same guards were reportedly subjected to sexual harassment and even assaulted by terrorists, and will carry the scars for the rest of their lives.
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No one believed Liran. Maybe because it was Channel 20, maybe because he was a young reporter, maybe because it was too horrifying to be true. But Liran didn't give up: he attached himself to the female guards, probed, challenged the Israel Prison Service, the Israel Police, and the State Attorney's Office. Despite everything, the investigation against the prison's intelligence officer, Rani Basha, was closed by Deputy State Attorney Momi Lemberger.
Last week, maybe because of a miracle, the sandal resurfaced when Gilboa Prison Warden Freddy Ben Shitrit testified before a government panel probing a prison break. Ben Shitrit mentioned the "pimping incident," which did not happen on his watch, and admitted that the prison would "pimp out" young female soldiers assigned there and "supplied female soldiers to terrorists for sexual purposes." Is Ben Shitrit trying to distract people from the terrorists' escape? It's not impossible. Still, we should thank him. Too many people swept the affair under the rug too quickly, leaving behind three female guards who were humiliated and scarred and a lack of justice.
Mohammad Atallah, a Fatah member serving a life sentence, is accused of molesting the female guards. But he isn't the issue. The issue is the people who sent him the guards. Rani Basha, the same intelligence officer, admitted when questioned that he had sent female guards to the security prisoners wing "for the sake of intelligence activity," without them knowing about it. In other words, there was no sophisticated intelligence operation here in which the guards were active participants – the opposite. He even admitted that he himself had "specifically asked for the female guard in questions and not another guard, because the security prisoner had mentioned her."
Basha apparently didn't know what the security prisoners were doing to the female guards. He admitted that he spoke with the prisoner, and warned him more than once about how was treating the female guards. So why on earth did Basha keep sending guards to that same prisoner, at his request? Despite the fact that they refused and asked not to be sent to the wing because of the terrorists' behavior toward them? And why, after all this, did the State Attorney's office close the investigation against Basha?
It's just incredible. The failure that led to the prison break is nothing compared to the failure that allowed women serving as guards to be pimped to prisoners. Prisoners break out all over the world. It happens because people aren't paying attention, are worn out, and are negligent. The matter of the female guards is something else. Here, there was premeditation. This is a problem that is rooted in the perverted norms of sacrificing humans while giving into terrorists. The case must be reopened, and no stone left unturned until justice comes to light.
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