Israel couldn’t have hoped for a better outcome than this

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The mistakes made by the Prison Service were corrected Friday night by other security branches, with the capture of four of the six Palestinians who escaped from Gilboa Prison last week.

A joint chase by the police, the Shin Bet security service and the Israel Defense Forces led to their apprehension on the outskirts of Arab towns inside Israel. The manhunt for the other two fugitives continues, with security forces investigating the possibility that at least one of them slipped into the northern West Bank and is trying to hide in the Jenin area.

This result so far was the best outcome Israel could have hoped for. In contrast to the recommendations of prattling keyboard warriors, the defense establishment realized that under the circumstances, the desirable result was the apprehension of the escapees, not their killing. Their death by defense forces gunfire would have been a sure recipe for escalation. Their status as national heroes would have been guaranteed and many young men in the West Bank would have wanted to follow in their footsteps.

Perhaps more importantly, the Islamic Jihad, with five of the escaped men belonging to its ranks, would have certainly fired rockets from the Gaza Strip into Israel. The death of these men could have brought about an escalation on both fronts at the same time.

With four of the men in the hands of the police and Shin Bet, alive and well, there is no new blood score to settle, and Palestinian organizations have no pretext to rekindle the fire in the occupied territories. No less important, security forces demonstrated an ability to regroup quickly after a string of embarrassing failures which enabled the escape. The sense of some relief, in the government and defense establishment, stems partly from the fact that the most high-profile escapees, Zakaria Zubeidi and Islamic Jihad member Mohammed Aradeh, were captured alive.

The first details to emerge from police briefings indicate a big gap between the initiative and resourcefulness the escapees demonstrated in planning their escape and what happened subsequently. A story that began like a Hollywood movie ended like an amateur production. The bold escape was followed by desperate improvisations. The four men, who were captured in pairs within hours of each other, seemed exhausted and confused. In contrast to reports that surfaced right after the breakout, it turns out that there was no getaway car waiting for them on the outside. They made their way on foot, and other than a short stop in the Israeli Arab village of Na’ura, it seems that they got very little help on the outside.

It’s likely that the need to maintain compartmentalization prevented them from coordinating their moves in advance with people on the outside. The area they chose to hide in dictated the results of the manhunt. The four remained within the 1967 borders and were unarmed. This ensured their surrender without being harmed. If one or two of them indeed reached Jenin, they may feel safer there. Palestinian Authority forces rarely venture into the West Bank town, and armed activists will provide them with protection. The entry of Israeli forces will entail an exchange of gunfire which may result in the death of the last two fugitives. It’s also possible that the two may wish to carry out a terror attack to cause damage before they are apprehended or killed.

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The apprehension of four of the escaped men made the doomsday prophecies of Benjamin Netanyahu’s acolytes seem ridiculous. They claimed that the breakout demonstrated the weakness of the Bennett-Lapid government and stemmed from the loss of Israeli deterrence against terror. The escape stemmed from the exploitation of various lapses in a facility controlled by a security service that is too weak, with its senior command not managing to instill in it a sufficiently high level of professionalism and discipline. Such an event could just as easily have happened under Netanyahu, in whose term the police and Prison Service were deliberately weakened.

On the other hand, victory celebrations by government supporters on social media are somewhat embarrassing. This wasn’t an Entebbe-style operation, just as the escape wasn’t a Yom Kippur War-style failure. All that happened Friday night was the defense forces doing their job as required. It seems that even after Netanyahu’s departure, Israel is still operating as a country with a psychological disorder, constantly gravitating from failures to festivals.

The police have given Bennett, who had his back to the wall, what for now appears to be a rapid extrication from a dangerous security-related crisis. Sometimes a prime minister just needs some luck. This happened to Bennett last month as well, at the height of the outbreak of the delta variant of the coronavirus, when the decision to administer a third vaccine blocked the rise in the rate of illness without the need to impose a lockdown during this month’s holidays.

However, the more important news of the weekend seemed to have been somewhat ignored, given the excitement evoked by the manhunt. Channel 12 News reporter Amit Segal claimed that Bennett associates estimate that “a significant escalation” is anticipated, possibly leading to another large-scale operation in the Gaza Strip within weeks. After Operation Guardian of the Walls last May, Israel did not succeed in dictating new rules in the Strip, and so far, there is no arrangement that will guarantee the arrival of all the monthly cash provided by Qatar under conditions demanded by Israel. On Friday night, a rocket was launched from Gaza into the western Negev area, shortly after the first two escaped men were caught. This too could be a signal sent by Hamas.

Arik (Harris) Barbing, who was the head of the Jerusalem and West Bank sector of the Shin Bet, told Haaretz on Saturday that during the last escalation, Hamas wanted to consolidate the link between what happens in the Gaza Strip and what happens in Jerusalem and the West Bank. The organization launched six rockets toward Jerusalem in May in response to clashes between police and Muslim worshipers on the Temple Mount. This link has not been severed, and Hamas sees importance in maintaining it and its image as the protector of the Palestinian people against Israel.

Barbing noted another phenomenon which may impact the current affair, and which should worry Israel in the longer run. Refugee camps in the northern West Bank have become quasi-independent territory, ruled by armed militias who prevent the entry of the Palestinian Authority. In some cases, the person giving financial aid to these militias is Mohammed Dahlan, an exiled Fatah leader who is in conflict with the Authority’s chairman Mahmoud Abbas. As the end of Abbas’ rule approaches, given his advanced age, this development will have an impact on the security situation vis-a-vis Israel.