Prisoners recaptured: lawyer visits denied, allegations of torture and mistreatment
Palestinians take part in a protest to show solidarity with prisoners held in Israeli jails, iIn Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, on 8 September 2021
Yumna Patel reports in Mondoweiss:
After one of the most dramatic prison escapes in Palestinian history, four of the six political prisoners who escaped a maximum security Israeli prison last week were recaptured over the weekend.
The four prisoners, Zakaria Zubeidi, Mohammed Qassem Ardah, Mahmoud Abdullah Ardah and Yaqoub Mahmoud Qadri were all captured by Israeli forces over the weekend in and around the Nazareth area in northern Israel.
Mahmoud Ardah and Yaqoub Qadri were captured on Friday night in a neighborhood in Nazareth city, while Zakaria Zubeidi and Mohammed Ardah were captured just hours later hiding in a truck parking lot outside Nazareth.
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In the end, Israeli media and government officials claimed that it was with “the help of Arab Israeli citizens” that Ardah and Qadri were captured, saying that residents of the area called the police when they discovered the pair“digging through the trash.” Similar claims were made regarding the capture of Zubeidi, with Israeli reports alleging it was Arab residents who called the police after Zubeidi reportedly asked them for food.
The accusations that it was in fact Palestinian citizens of Israel who turned the prisoners over to the police was vehemently denied, both by Palestinians in Nazareth and across the country.
Many took to social media to express their frustration over what they called Israeli attempts to “sow discord” in the community, and urged their fellow citizens not to succumb to the efforts to divide them.