Last two of six escaped terrorists captured in Jenin
The last two of the six terrorists who escaped from the Gilboa Prison some two weeks ago were captured by Israeli forces in the Palestinian Authority (PA) of Jenin on Saturday night in a complex and swift operation.
One of the captured terrorists. (IDF)
In a joint operation with the Shin Bet security service, the Israel Police’s elite Yamam counterterrorism unit, and the IDF, the remaining two terrorists, Ayham Kamamji and Munadal Infi’at, Islamic Jihad terrorists, were captured.
Both terrorists surrendered and were taken alive after being surrounded by security forces who acted precisely based on accurate intelligence provided by the Shin Bet.
Another two Arabs who assisted the terrorists were arrested as well. No one was injured in the incident.
Simultaneously, another IDF force entered Jenin from a different area to throw off the armed terrorists inside the city and lure them away from where the arrest was actually taking place. They encountered rioters.
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett lauded the “impressive, sophisticated and quick operation.”
Minister of Internal Security Omer Bar-Lev thanked the security forces and underscored that “the manhunt ended successfully but the mission is not over yet, we must make sure that such an event does not happen again in the future – so in the coming days, I will bring to the government for approval the establishment of a government commission of inquiry, which will examine the chain of circumstances that led to the escapes, conclusions and recommendations regarding the set of individual and systemic aspects that the event provoked.”
The other four terrorists who escaped, Zakariya Zubeidi, Yaqub Qaderi, Muhammad Qassem Ardah and Mahmoud Abdullah Ardah, were captured a week ago in two separate incidents.
The first two terrorists to be captured were Qaderi and Mahmoud Abdullah Ardah, Islamic Jihad terrorists. They were apprehended on Friday, September 12, by patrol officers in the area of Nazareth. According to police, the two approached citizens in the area and asked them for food and help, and the Arab-Israelis called the police. Large forces were rushed to the area and located and arrested the two.
About 10 hours later, two more fugitives, Zubeidi and Muhammad Qassem Ardah, were captured in the Israeli-Arab town of Umm al-Ghanem. The two were arrested while hiding in a truck parking lot. The two were located after a local citizen reported seeing them in the area.
The six terrorists managed to escape through a hole they dug in the floor of their cell, and the hunt for them was one of the largest in recent years.
Kamamji, 35, who was captured Saturday night, murdered Eliyahu Ashri in 2006 and planned to blow up a bus filled with passengers using an exploding car carrying a massive explosive approximately 100 kilograms in weight.
Infi’at, 26, is on trial for terrorism-related offences.
Zubeidi, a senior Fatah terrorist, commanded the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades in Jenin. He was indicted for a long list of terror activities.
Mahmoud Ardah was arrested in 1996 and sentenced to life and another 15 years. He is considered Islamic the commander of the escape operation.
Muhammad Ardah, an Islamic Jihad, planned a suicide bombing in November 2001, in which three Israelis were murdered and many others were wounded.
Qaderi committed a shooting attack in 2002 in which Yosef Ajami was murdered and a foreign worker was wounded.
