PA daily says Hamas lied in accusing PA of helping Israel hunt for fugitive prisoners
Excerpt of an editorial by the official PA daily
Headline: “The language of the homeland”
“Some of the rumors, and even most of them, were created in the circles of the hostile intelligence forces. These [media] outlets rely on Israeli papers, and especially on the extremist racist right-wing papers, as reliable sources, and they cite news items from them… This is what [Hamas’] Al-Aqsa TV did when it cited… a news item whose source was the Israeli Security Agency (!) [parentheses in source], which claims that two high-ranking officials in the PA proposed aid and an exchange of information with the Israeli Security Agency regarding the six prisoners who succeeded in escaping from the occupation’s Gilboa Prison (refers to 6 terrorist prisoners including Zakariya Zubeidi who escaped from prison -Ed.)! This is not just a sin against professionalism and objectivity, but also a sin against the national values and national ethics, which call solely for unity, cooperation, friendship, and constantly searching for that which is in common in order to fight the occupation.”
Zakariya Zubeidi - Palestinian terrorist and head of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades (Fatah's military wing) in the Jenin area during the PA terror campaign (the second Intifada, 2000-2005), when he oversaw numerous lethal attacks. Zubeidi was taken off Israel's wanted list in 2007 on condition that he refrain from terror as part of a deal with the PA; he was subsequently given a position in the PA Ministry of Prisoners' Affairs and made a Fatah Revolutionary Council member. Zubeidi was arrested by Israel on Feb. 27, 2019, for breaching the deal by committing several shooting attacks with an accomplice - East Jerusalem lawyer Tareq Barghut who worked in the PA Ministry of Prisoners' Affairs - near Beit El north of Ramallah on Nov. 7, 2018 and Jan. 5, 2019, and north of Jerusalem in late 2018; Zubeidi used a car issued to him by the PA in the attacks. Israel has put Zubeidi on trial for all of his past terror activity. Zubeidi escaped from Israel’s Gilboa Prison on Sept. 6, 2021, together with 5 Islamic Jihad terrorist prisoners who shared a cell with him, by digging a tunnel out through the floor with a spoon.