Israeli police on Saturday arrested four of the six Palestinians who escaped this week from a maximum security prison, including a guerrilla leader whose actions have made him a well-known figure in Israel.
Later on Saturday, the four recaptured defendants were presented separately in court, where prosecutors are trying to file charges of terrorism against them after their escape.
Following Saturday’s arrests, Israel was closer to turning a shameful page that exposed serious flaws in its prison system and turned fugitive prisoners into Palestinian heroes.
On Friday night, Palestinian fighters in the Gaza Strip fired a missile into Israeli territory, apparently in a show of solidarity and Israel launched airstrikes in retaliation.
The four fugitives were recaptured in two operations in northern Israel.
In the early hours of Saturday, police announced the capture of two of them, including Zakaria Zubeidi, hidden in a truck parking lot in the Arab community of Umm al-Ghanam.
Israeli news site Haaretz quoted an unidentified Defense official as reporting that Zubeidi and another fugitive identified as Mohammad Aradeh had been hiding in open areas for some time. The source added that the two fugitives did not appear to have received assistance in their escape and did not have a planned route.
Zubeidi was a rebel leader during the second Palestinian uprising in the early 2000s.
While he had been linked to attacks on Israelis, he was also well known for granting frequent media interviews and for a friendship he once had with an Israeli woman.
Over the years, Zubeidi received amnesty, took university-level courses and actively participated in a theatrical movement in the West Bank before being arrested again in 2019 for his alleged involvement in attacks.
Photographs released by police showed Zubeidi handcuffed and with a white bandage covering his eyes when two officers carried him.
In a statement, police said Israeli security forces, including the military, were working “24 hours” to capture the fugitives.
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“All forces were deployed at full capacity searched in open areas and collected all information until they managed to solve the puzzle to locate these two fugitives,” including Zubeidi, police said. The search for the last two fugitives continued.
Hours earlier, two other prisoners had been arrested in Nazareth, an Arab city in northern Israel, west of Umm al-Ghanam.
A video circulating on social media showed Israeli police handcuffing one of the prisoners, Yakub Kadari, in the back seat of a police vehicle and asking his name. The man, who was wearing jeans and a green T-shirt, calmly identified himself as Kadari and replied “yes” when asked if he was one of the fugitives. Kadari is serving two life sentences for attempted murder and planting a bomb.
In a statement issued Sunday night, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett praised Israeli security forces for the arrest of the four fugitives and described the search operation as “determined and persistent.”