Hamas is planning to kidnap more Israeli soldiers, a spokesperson for the terror group said Sunday. According to Abu Obaideh, kidnapping IDF soldiers is one of the best ways to ensure the release of terrorists from Israeli prisons.
Writing on his Twitter account, Abu Obaideh said that Hamas terrorists not in prison “are obligated to everything to ensure the freedom of prisoners.” He said that he was thus sending a message of support to imprisoned terrorists, urging them not to lose hope, and that the day of their release would come soon.
Abu Obaideh made the comments in the wake of an interview given by arch-terrorist Abdullah Barghouti, who is serving 67 life terms in an Israeli prison for the deaths of 66 Israelis. Barghouti was directly involved in many of the worst terror attacks of the Second Intifada, including the Sbarro pizza bombing in August 2001.
Barghouti gave the interview via a cellphone that was smuggled into his cell. The phone was apparently delivered by another prisoner who had brought it in to the prison. In the interview with Hamas-run A-Rai Radio, Barghouti called on terrorists to increase their activity against Israel.
As Barghouti was giving the interview, Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked presented a law to the government's Ministerial Law Committee to ban the use and possession of cellular phones by security prisoners.
Prisoners are able to bring a phone into a top security facility because of the inconclusive nature of current laws on the matter. While officially, prison wardens have the right to ban phones, security prisoners have often brought demands for phone use to the High Court, which has sometimes agreed that they ought to be given phones for “humanitarian reasons.”
To prevent illicit phone use, the Prisons Service operates “dampening” equipment, which prevents prisoners from making or receiving calls. But the technology is not foolproof, as the fact of the latest Barghouti interview shows.
Under Shaked's new proposal, which was authored in conjunction with the Prisons Service, all prisoners who are convicted of security crimes or murders will be banned from using cellphones. The law will apply equally to all security prisoners, Arab or Jewish, Shaked said.