Members of the Knesset's Interior Committee held a meeting with two of the top Arab terrorists being held in Israeli jails, Marwan Barghouti and Samir Kuntar, during a tour of the Hadarim jail.
Barghouti: prisoner release is "a joke"
Barghouti told his visitors that Monday's release of about 400 prisoners was "a joke." He told the head of the committee, MK Ophir Pines (Labor), that Israel could have easily released 8,000 prisoners and that the prisoners released were due to be released in a few months' time anyways.
Barghouti complained that he and other prisoners are not given access to a telephone. MK Pines interceded on his behalf later and asked the Chief Warden of the Prison Service why Yigal Amir had his own cell phone and the Arab terrorists did not.
Kuntar said the Prison Service's treatment of the prisoners is humane and based on mutual respect.
Two-year-old Yael Haran was accidentally suffocated to death by her mother's attempts to stifle her crying.
Asked by MK Moshe Gafni (UTJ) whether he regretted the deed that landed him in jail he said: "I do not regret it. The question is not personal. This is a collective conflict."
Barghouti was a top commander in the Fatah terror group. He was arrested by a special IDF force in Ramallah, on April 15, 2002. Several months later, he was indicted in civilian court on charges of murder and attempted murder stemming from attacks carried out by the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades on Israeli Druze soldiers.
Kuntar smashed Einat's head
Barghouti was convicted on May 20, 2004 of five counts of murder. He was acquitted of 21 counts of murder in 33 other attacks for which the judges determined he only bore "moral responsibility," but no direct responsibility. On June 6, 2004, he was sentenced to five life sentences for the five murders and forty years imprisonment for the attempted murder.
Samir Kuntar participated in a terrorist attack on Israel in 1979 and was convicted by his admission for killing of four Israelis. Kuntar and his associates reached Israel by boat, and killed a policeman whom they encountered. They entered a residential apartment and took twenty-eight-year old Danny Haran hostage along with his four-year-old daughter, Einat. The mother, Smadar Haran, hid in a crawl space above the bedroom with her two-year-old daughter Yael, and a neighbor.
Kuntar's group took Danny and Einat down to the beach, where Kuntar shot Danny at close range in front of his daughter and drowned him in the sea to ensure he was dead. He then smashed the four year old girl's head on beach rocks and crushed her skull with the butt of his rifle, killing her.
Two-year-old Yael Haran was accidentally suffocated to death by her mother's attempts to stifle her crying, so that they would not be found by Kuntar's group.