Where were the Gilboa guards during the escape?

• Author: ILANA CHAIM
• Published date: 27 September 2021
• Publication title: Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel)

News of the escape was met with numerous theories that proved to be false as time went on during the frantic manhunt for six senior terrorists. Some sophisticates insisted that they were probably already in Jordan, since such a sophisticated escape must have included outside collaborators with a getaway car.

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It was surprising and gratifying that, not only did fellow Arabs refuse to help them on the run, but one phoned the police. The first four were apprehended exhausted and hungry.

After the happy ending, accusations, recriminations, calls to resign and to restructure the Israel Prisons Service flooded the media. But amid all the excitement, so far no one has sought the opinion of an actual prison guard.

Since my former fellow turnkeys are probably banned from speaking to the press, especially during an investigation, I feel it incumbent to express some of their likely thoughts on their behalf, with one reservation.

That is whether and how conditions have changed since a rainy December in 1994, which I had spent in a month's vacation from The Jerusalem Post in miluim, guarding some 450 Hamas terrorists residing in the central prison of Nablus. We did round-the-clock shifts, eight hours on and off, locked inside an unheated watchtower, during a very cold and rainy December.

Among other thoughts during my brief imprisonment – for I, too, was there not of my own volition – was: how could a prisoner escape? I remembered the books I had read as a teenager, like The Colditz Story, or the movie The Great Escape about true escapes by allied soldiers from a prisoner of war camps.

They managed to tunnel beyond the perimeter and flee after months of digging, which involved disposing [of] the tons of dirt they secretly excavated. This was possible because in those camps they had an outdoor exercise yard and could surreptitiously scatter dirt while walking around.

The Nablus Central Prison is in the center of town, enclosed by high walls. The only place prisoners are outside is the internal exercise yard. No place to scatter tons of dirt.

Which brings our thoughts back to the Gilboa Prison break.

Before turning to the role of the watchtower guard, our first question is: How in the world did the tunnelers dispose of the tons of dirt they excavated for a tunnel 30 meters long – and over several months – without being discovered?

No doubt a commission of inquiry will sort things out about possible negligence on the part of the prison management. However...