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Lawyers: Israel Prison Escapees Began Digging Tunnel in December

Police officers and prison guards inspect the scene of a prison escape outside the Gilboa prison in northern Israel, Monday, Sept. 6, 2021. (AP Photo)
Police officers and prison guards inspect the scene of a prison escape outside the Gilboa prison in northern Israel, Monday, Sept. 6, 2021. (AP Photo)
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Lawyers: Israel Prison Escapees Began Digging Tunnel in December

Police officers and prison guards inspect the scene of a prison escape outside the Gilboa prison in northern Israel, Monday, Sept. 6, 2021. (AP Photo)
Police officers and prison guards inspect the scene of a prison escape outside the Gilboa prison in northern Israel, Monday, Sept. 6, 2021. (AP Photo)

Palestinian prisoners who broke out of a high-security Israeli jail this month began digging their escape tunnel in December, lawyers for two of the arrested escapees said on Wednesday.

Six inmates staged a dramatic escape from Gilboa jail in northern Israel on September 6 after digging a tunnel under a sink in their cell and making their way to freedom.

Israeli security forces launched a large-scale manhunt for the escapees in Israel and the occupied West Bank, and have since recaptured four of them.

Lawyers for two of those arrested, Mahmud Abdullah Ardah and Yaqub Qadri, on Wednesday revealed details of their escape.

"Mahmud told me he started digging (the tunnel) in December," his lawyer Roslan Mahajana told AFP after visiting him in detention.

Ardah claimed to be the architect of the escape, saying he used spoons, plates and even the handle of a kettle to dig the tunnel from his jail cell.

"They started questioning him after his arrest because they believe he was the one who planned and implemented the operation," said the lawyer.

Qadri's lawyer gave a similar account of their escape.

"Mr Qadri told me that this process started on December 14 and that this is what he told the Israeli investigators," Hanane Khatib said, without elaborating.

In an interview with Palestinian television, the lawyer said that her client "was very happy despite his arrest because he was able to wander around for five days" until his arrest.

The lawyer said the inmates had not planned to escape on September 6, but they rushed ahead with it on that day because they feared guards had become suspicious and noticed changes in their cell.

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Syria Minister Says Open to Talks with Kurds, But Ready to Use 'Force'

Syria's new Defense Minister Murhaf Abu Qasra attends an interview with Reuters in Damascus, Syria January 19, 2025. (Reuters)
Syria's new Defense Minister Murhaf Abu Qasra attends an interview with Reuters in Damascus, Syria January 19, 2025. (Reuters)
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Syria Minister Says Open to Talks with Kurds, But Ready to Use 'Force'

Syria's new Defense Minister Murhaf Abu Qasra attends an interview with Reuters in Damascus, Syria January 19, 2025. (Reuters)
Syria's new Defense Minister Murhaf Abu Qasra attends an interview with Reuters in Damascus, Syria January 19, 2025. (Reuters)

Syria's defense minister said Wednesday that Damascus was open to talks with Kurdish-led forces on their integration into the national army but stood ready to use force should negotiations fail.

"The door to negotiation with the (Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces) is currently open," Murhaf Abu Qasra told reporters.

"If we have to use force, we will be ready."

Last month, an official told AFP that an SDF delegation had met Syria's interim leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, who heads the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group that spearheaded the opposition offensive that ousted Bashar al-Assad.

Sharaa had told Al Arabiya television that Kurdish-led forces should be integrated into the new national army so that weapons are "in the hands of the state alone".

The US-backed SDF spearheaded the military campaign that ousted the ISIS group from its last territory in Syria in 2019.

The group controls much of the oil-producing northeast, where it has enjoyed de facto autonomy for more than a decade.

"They offered us oil, but we don't want oil, we want the institutions and the borders," Abu Qasra said.

Ankara, which has long had ties with HTS, accuses the main component of the SDF, the People's Protection Units (YPG), of being affiliated with Türkiye's outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

In an offensive that coincided with the HTS-led advance on Damascus, Turkish-backed armed groups in northern Syria seized several areas from the SDF late last year.

Earlier this month, then US secretary of state Antony Blinken said he was working to address Turkish concerns and dissuade it from stepping up its offensive against the SDF.

UN envoy to Syria Geir Pedersen told reporters in Damascus on Wednesday that he hoped the warring parties would allow time for a diplomatic solution "so that this does not end in a full military confrontation".

Pedersen said Washington and Ankara "have a key role to play in supporting this" effort.

"We are looking for the beginning of a new Syria and hopefully that will also include the northeast in a peaceful manner," he said.