Israel tries to cover humiliating jailbreak with mass arrests of Palestinians

Israeli security forces have detained dozens of Palestinians in recent days in a campaign of mass arrests in response to an embarrassing high-security prison escape earlier this month.

According to figures from the PLO’s Negotiations Affairs Department (NAD) and the Palestinian prisoners’ organisation Addameer, more than 100 Palestinians have been arrested since six high-profile Palestinian prisoners escaped from Gilboa prison in northern Israel on September 6.

“We have documented an average of 14 arrests per day in the occupied West Bank since the men escaped,” Milena Ansari from Addameer told Al Jazeera. “This does not include the Palestinians arrested within Israel.”

All six men who tunnelled out of the prison are now back in Israeli custody after the final two Palestinians surrendered to troops in Jenin city early on Sunday.
 

Amid the manhunt for the missing men, Israeli forces carried out retaliatory raids against family members of the escapees in the Jenin area, which was already restive, arresting and interrogating them before releasing some.
 

The arrests and raids have also focused on Ramallah, Hebron, Nablus and surrounding villages.