Gilboa Prison break follows the pattern of Yom Kippur War

• Published date: 23 September 2021
• Author: HERB KEINON
• Publication title: Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel)

The story followed a well-worn pattern: Sloppy, overconfident planning and work led to a bad blunder, which led to apocalyptic hand-wringing and forecast of catastrophe, which led to intensive action to forestall disaster, which led to a satisfactory conclusion, which led to the establishment of a commission of inquiry.

This pattern's prototype was the Yom Kippur War. A colossal intelligence failure led to unpreparedness which led to initial disaster in the war and Moshe Dayan's fear that the "Third Temple" was about to fall. This was followed by a valiant reversal of fortunes that placed the IDF, at the end of October 1973, within striking distance of Cairo and Damascus. The war led to the Agranat Commission, whose lessons were internalized.

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The Second Lebanon War, with many variations, followed a similar pattern. An ill-prepared entrance into the war, followed by self-flagellation at the way the country performed during the war and a feeling among many that it was a disaster that showed Israel had lost its edge, followed by the Winograd Commission of Inquiry, but also followed later by a realization that the war did not go as bad as everyone thought at the time, since it brought more than 15 years of quiet to the North.

And now into this pattern, though at a much, much smaller scale, can be fit the brazen escape of six hardened terrorists from the Gilboa Prison.

Basic incompetence facilitated the breakout: The maximum-security prison was built with "structural flaws," including a hollow space underneath which allowed the prisoners to reach the facility's outer wall. Building materials used in the construction of the prison were left under the floor of the cell and were apparently used in the escape. The prison's structural plans were put on the Internet.

One prison guard reportedly fell asleep, and another – rather than following security cameras in the prison's control room – was apparently watching television. Devices to disrupt cellular phone use were not used. The six escapees were housed in the same cell, even though three of them were tagged earlier as likely candidates for an escape. No one caught wind of the tunneling going on inside the prison walls.

When the prison break was revealed, the nation was in shock. The fact that the six inmates were able, with only rudimentary tools, to flee from a...