PA Justice Minister wrongly asserts that the Geneva Convention prevents Israel from rearresting fugitive terrorist prisoners

Headline: “The international legal status of the six prisoners: They must not be put on trial or held accountable”

“[PA] Minister of Justice Muhammad Shalaldeh said that according to Article 91 of the Third Geneva Convention, the escape of the six prisoners is considered successful (refers to 6 terrorist prisoners who escaped Gilboa Prison; see note below -Ed.)… and they must not be held accountable and put on trial before Israeli courts (sic., Article 91 of the Third Geneva Convention refers to prisoners of war, a status whose definition Palestinian terrorists do not meet). He noted that this is a text that obligates the occupying power and that it must respect and implement it, but what Israel is doing against them constitutes an outrageous violation of the principles of international humanitarian law and international law in general.”

2021 Gilboa Prison escape – 6 Palestinian terrorist prisoners escaped from Israel's Gilboa Prison on Sept. 6, 2021, by widening the hole of the shower drainpipe in the floor of their cell. One terrorist is from Fatah - Zakariya Zubeidi, and the other five are from Islamic Jihad - Ayham Kamamji, Muhammad Ardah, Mahmoud Ardah, Yaqub Qaderi, and Munadil Nafiyat. Four of the terrorists were recaptured after five days: Zubeidi, Ardah, Ardah, and Qaderi. Kamamji and Nafiyat were arrested in Jenin on Sept. 18, 2021 along with two accomplices. Zubeidi was 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, and he also carried out shooting attacks in 2018-2019. Kamamji participated in the murder of 18-year-old Eliyahu Asheri on June 25, 2006, and planned to blow up a bus using an exploding car. Muhammad Ardah participated in initiating and executing a suicide bombing on bus no. 823 on Nov. 29, 2001, in which 3 people were murdered and many others were wounded. Mahmoud Ardah was involved in numerous attacks; the website of Islamic Jihad’s military wing defined him as the "commander" of the prison escape. Qaderi committed a shooting attack on Sept. 18, 2002 with an accomplice in which Israeli Yosef Ajami was murdered and a foreign worker was wounded. Nafiyat was being held in administrative detention.