Former Internal Security Minister, MK Amir Ohana (Likud), testified on Thursday morning before the State Commission of Inquiry into the escape of terrorist prisoners from Gilboa Prison, and said that “there is a problem of telling the truth in the Israel Prisons Service,” including regarding the affair of pimping female prison guards, about which he said, “The entire affair is rife with not telling the truth.” According to Ohana, this is an organizational culture whose shortcomings are also common in the police.
In November 2021, Gilboa Prison Commander, Colonel Freddy Ben Sheetrit, told the same committee that IDF female conscripts had been sent out to meet the needs of terrorists behind bars (Gilboa Prison Commander Confirms: Female Soldiers Were Offered to Terrorist Prisoners). The sordid episode was denied vehemently by the Israel Prisons Service in June 2018 when it had been revealed by Channel 20 correspondent Liran Levy.
“They pimped out the conscript female soldiers who served at the prison, to provide female soldiers to terrorists to satisfy their urges. This pimping out was a groundbreaking event,” Ben Sheetrit told the committee. It should be noted that at least the specific event took place before his appointment.
Referring to the seeming helplessness of prison staff, Ohana said: “No mother dreams that her son will grow up to be a prison guard, it’s a dark and musty place, not a pleasant place to be in – so I’m not surprised that the good ones don’t come to the IPS.”
On Wednesday, former Internal Security Minister Gilad Erdan—now Israel’s envoy to the UN—testified before the committee and was asked why the IPS Superintendent and commissioner had not been appointed for two years and replied that “the IPS’ problem in those two years was not the commissioner, because the deputy has the same powers. The problem was that there was no state budget and so no planning could be done.”
Erdan was right. While Israel was having four election campaigns in two years, the budget was frozen at its 2018 state and the caretaker government could not handle any changes – this while combating a pandemic. Feels good not to be there anymore, doesn’t it?
According to the former minister, “by the end of 2019, the Attorney General had already approved the appointment of a superintendent and a commissioner for the Prisons Service, but there was already talk of sending me to the post of ambassador and I was afraid to bring in a candidate that won’t be approved by the cabinet.”
Erdan added defensively, “I agree that the situation is not healthy, but this does not necessarily have a causal connection to the escapes.”
The committee’s chairman, Professor Menachem Finkelstein, stressed at that point: “We are not a court, we don’t have to have a causal connection.”
Erdan obviously came to testify with a full belly about his time as Internal Security Minister. One of the issues he noted was the failure to block cellular calls coming out of the prison: “The prisoners threatened a strike if the system was activated. That morning I held a discussion on preparing for a terrorist prisoner strike, including pressing to increase the number of available hospital beds – and that evening I was invited to a discussion at the Prime Minister’s, where the head of the Shin Bet suggested not to activate the blocking. My jaw dropped. Was this a terrorist special? All I wanted was to do was the obvious…”
