[Ynet] Spokeswoman says Yaqoub Qadiri and Mohammad al-Arida - both members of Islamic Jihad - were located near the Arab city of Nazareth; local woman alerted police after fugitives asked her for food; Palestinians in Gaza fire rockets at south shortly after capture.Israeli security forces captured two of six Palestinian security prisoners who broke out of a high-level detention facility earlier this week, at the tail end of an intense five-day manhunt, a police spokeswoman confirmed on Friday.
The six Palestinians tunneled out of the Gilboa Prison on Monday, setting off a furious manhunt across Israel and in the West Bank. The escape has exposed major flaws in Israel's prison service and set off days of angry criticism and finger pointing.
The two escapees were captured late Friday on Mount Precipice near the Arab city of Nazareth in northern Israel, not far from where the prison they escaped from is located, the spokeswoman said in a statement.
The two fugitives were identified as Yaqoub Qadiri, 49, and Mohammad al-Arida, 39 - both members of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) terrorist group.
The pair were caught after a local resident alerted the police, telling them two "Palestinian workers" asked her for food and had earlier been rampaging through local trash containers.
The two were not armed at the time of their arrest and did not resist it. They were taken in for questioning by the Shin Bet domestic security agency.
A video circulating on social media showed Israeli police putting a man into the backseat of a police vehicle and asking the suspect for his name.
The man, wearing jeans and green T-shirt, calmly identifies himself as Qadiri and answers "yes" when asked whether he is one of the escapees. Qadiri was serving two life sentences for attempted murder and bomb planting.
Four other prisoners remain at large, including Zakaria Zubeidi - a former commander of the mainstream Fatah’s military wing, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, who was convicted in several deadly attacks and was serving a life sentence before escaping.
All of the prisoners are from the nearby city of Jenin in the West Bank and all but one belong to PIJ.
Shortly after their capture, Palestinian terrorists in Gaza, believed to be from the Islamic Jihad, fired rockets at Israeli communities near the border.
[PUBLISH.TWITTER]
That’s an important detail that is worth emphasizing - the police got the lead for the arrests of the 2 fugitive from a family of Israeli Arabs that called to say that two illegal residents came to ask for food https://t.co/kawjraVgnQ
— Nadav Pollak (@NadavPollak) September 10, 2021
| Update from The Times of Israel at 1:30 a.m. ET: |
The second recaptured prisoner was named by police as Mohammed al-Arida, the younger brother of the reported mastermind of the jailbreak.
Four of the six escapees are now back in Israeli custody, as searches continued for the remaining two fugitives, Iham Kamamji and Munadil Nafiyat.
Four of the six fugitives who broke out earlier this week were in jail for life in connection with deadly attacks against Israelis. Zubeidi was in prison while on trial for two dozen crimes, including attempted murder. Another was held in administrative detention. All but Zubeidi are Islamic Jihad members.
Zubeidi and Al-Arida were detained by Israeli counter-terror police officers near the northern town of Shibli–Umm al-Ghanam. The two were captured at around 5 a.m. at a parking lot used by truck drivers.
An unnamed security official told Hebrew media that Zubeidi briefly tried to escape during the arrest operation, but was quickly overpowered.
“They found them hiding under the wheel of a truck,” Yusuf Kahili, a resident of the town, said to reporters. “I saw them. They looked scared, hungry and humiliated.”
According to Hebrew-language media reports, security officials increasingly believe the fugitives did not have outside assistance after their escape from the prison, noting none of the four were armed at the time of their capture.
The announcement of Zubeidi’s capture came after Prime Minister Naftali Bennett met with police and military officials for an assessment of the situation in northern Israel in the predawn hours of Saturday morning, an unusual step for the religiously-observant premier to take on the Jewish Sabbath.
The arrests of Zubeidi and al-Arida came just hours after two other escapees from the jailbreak were arrested in the northern town of Nazareth.