Israeli prison nabs 8 cellphones destined for Islamic Jihad inmates
After tip-off, devices intended for security prisoners are discovered behind window molding in visitors’ area
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An Israeli prison foiled a recent attempt to smuggle cellphones to Palestinian inmates, reports said Monday, as lawmakers gathered to discuss lifting the immunity of an MK accused of passing similar devices to other prisoners in the jail.
Officials acting on a tip-off last week searched the visitors’ room in Ketziot Prison, near the southern city of Beersheba, where they discovered eight hidden phones.
The devices were concealed behind plastic molding surrounding a window on the visitors’ side, the Hebrew-language media reported.
The phones were intended to be collected by prisoners who belong to the Islamic Jihad terror group.
Prison staff and intelligence officials wage a constant battle of wits against smugglers trying to bring phones into the jails in varied and inventive ways. The Prison Service also blocks the signals in prison wings that house security convicts.
לא רק באסל – סיכול נוסף של הברחת ניידים לאסירים ביטחוניים בשבוע שעבר בכלא קציעות pic.twitter.com/xLFyY8msQw
— כאן חדשות | רשת ב (@ReshetBet) December 19, 2016
In 2015 the government proposed legislation to curb the use of phones by jailed terrorists. Cellphones have become a key method of connecting the operational requirements of those planning attacks with the experience possessed by those behind bars, the bill said.
“The phones smuggled into prison are used not only by individual prisoners but also by the organizations’ leadership for the purposes of establishing and keep up contact with existing infrastructure in the field, commanders in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and abroad, as well as coordination between the leadership in different prisons and to preserve organized and military activity in the prisons and outside of them,” the bill noted.
In October the head of another Israeli prison and a senior officer were removed from their posts over a cellphone smuggling attempt in which a Palestinian security prisoner escaped from his wing by crawling through an air-conditioning duct.
Police said Sunday that there was substantial evidence against MK Basel Ghattas from the Joint (Arab) List, who is suspected of smuggling cellphones to two Palestinian security prisoners. Parliamentarians do not undergo the same security searches upon entering the jails as other visitors.
Police told Channel 2 that they believe Ghattas may have also, on at least one occasion, smuggled in SIM cards for the prisoners, hidden in a hollowed-out book.
The Times of Israel Community.