Prison guards thwart attempt to smuggle cellphones to security inmates
Contraband devices hidden in fender of food truck delivering supplies to Ketziot Prison; dozens of SIM cards also seized
Security guards intercepted eight cellphones as they were being smuggled into the Ketziot Prison hidden in the fender of a food truck, the Israel Prisons Service said Thursday.
Dozens of SIM cards were also seized in the bust.
The phones and cards were apparently intended for Palestinian security prisoners held at the site in southern Israel.
Guards checked the truck when it arrived at the facility and examined the fenders. Inside they found the smartphones bundled together and the SIM cards.
The driver was detained for investigation by police who were summoned to the scene.
In an effort to prevent the use of unauthorized phones by prisoners, the IPS has installed signal blocking equipment at some of its prisons and made public phones available for use instead.
Israeli officials reportedly agreed in April to install public telephones in 44 prison wards where security prisoners are kept, and to allow prisoners to make regular, supervised calls to their families.
The public phones were installed in the Ketziot and Ramon prisons but their use was conditioned on prisoners signing a commitment to stop smuggling cellphones into the prisons and to give up any devices they already have in their possession. Any violations of the agreement would lead to the public phones being disconnected.
Prisoners in Ketziot signed the commitment, but those in Ramon did not, the Haaretz daily reported in August.
The measure prompted hunger strikes by prisoners who complained about the service offered by the public phones.
Last month some 100 Hamas terror group prisoners called off their hunger strike on the issue. The prisoners ended the strike of their own accord and without achieving any of their aims, the IPS said at the time, after recognizing that prison officials would not back down and remove the cellphone blocking technology.
The IPS says that smuggled phones are used to coordinate terror attacks outside the prisons.
The IPS in April said some 300 contraband phones, some carrying messages between terror cells, had been smuggled into the wards in the preceding months. The phones were being used to coordinate terror attacks, and had been implicated in at least 14 attempts at coordinating attacks from inside Israeli prisons.
The row over incarceration conditions sparked violence earlier this year, including riots at Ketziot that, according to the Palestinian Prisoners Club, left 120 prisoners hurt in altercations throughout February and March.
Twice in March, Hamas prisoners attacked guards at Ketziot, with one guard sustaining serious injuries from a stab wound to his neck. In another attack, inmates used shanks to stab guards while the prisoners were being moved between cells, sparking a riot in the prison.
