Israel Prison Service Commissioner Katy Perry said Thursday that she has "no plans" to step down over the Gilboa Prison fiasco, as law enforcement officials ventured that the IPS will have to answer to an independent commission of inquiry on the matter.
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The manhunt for the six Palestinian terrorists who escaped the maximum-security prison in northern Israel on Monday entered its fourth day on Thursday, with efforts including police and military forces, Shin Bet security service agents, and Border Police troops.
The IPS confirmed that five of the six fugitives are members of Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Four of them are serving life sentences over terrorist attacks or affiliation with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The other two had been held on administrative detention pending their indictment.
The group included Zakaria Zubeidi, a notorious commander in Fatah's Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, who is currently on trial for attempted murder as well as two dozen other crimes.
As the manhunt for the six intensified over the Rosh Hashanah holiday, riots broke out in several facilities holding Palestinian security prisoners.
Palestinian inmates torched seven cells in Ketziot Prison over IPS efforts to move them to different locations. Fires were also reported at Ramon and Megiddo prisons.
Immediately following the jailbreak, all of the security prisoners at Gilboa prison were relocated and dispersed throughout other maximum prisons in the country.
Faced with growing criticism, Perry, who was named IPS commissioner eight months ago, issued a missive to all Prison Service Personal addressing the jailbreak.
Making it clear that she had no intention of resigning her post, Perry wrote, "I am here to continue leading you and together, we will continue to serve the State of Israel and the public."
The prison break, she wrote, "Is a grave event that dealt a blow to the very core of our operations – standing guards over the inmates. There is no doubt that we are going through a difficult, rattling, and formative event, which will undoubtedly have serious implications.
"This is a difficult time for all of us, and we are required to bravely face it, investigate what happened across the board and conduct extensive learning processes that will advance our work."
Perry has so far ordered to increase security in all prions, canvass cells and wards, bolster the deployment of prison guards, and move security prisoners between maximum-security facilities, so as to break up any Palestinian Islamic Jihad's power structures.
Palestinian media reported on Thursday that following the jailbreak, the IPS has canceled visits for all Palestinian prisoners.
The order is expected to remain in place in tandem with the closure imposed on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip ahead of the High Holidays.
The Gilboa Prison escape is one of the worst jailbreaks in Israel's history, and the details slowly emerging as the investigation unfolds are revealing a series of gross failures by the IPS.
Calls for Perry's dismissal or resignation over the fiasco have been growing. Some law enforcement officials have called for the formation of an independent commission of inquiry, while the Public Security Ministry said it will review the results of the IPA investigation before ruling on the matter.
"The escape from Gilboa Prison is not an isolated failure. These failures have been going on for years," a senior law enforcement official told Walla news.
"The more details come to light over how events unfolded during the prison break the more we understand the magnitude of this fiasco," he continued. "There is no way to avoid the formation of an external and independent commission of inquiry to dig into the circumstances that led to the jailbreak."
Still, a Public Security Ministry official said that, "At this stage, our efforts are focused on three things: One – find the fugitives; two - calming the situation in the prisons, and three – having the police and the IPA investigate the incident.
Public Security Minister Omer Barlev "will formulate his position on the matter only after he reviews the findings, and it very well may include taking action against the relevant functionaries."
Bar-Lev and Perry visited Ketziot on Thursday and commended the facility's personnel for how they handled Wednesday's prison riots.
"We will leave no stone unturned in order to find out what caused this failure," he pledged, saying that the investigation will look at the "local level of the prison and the general implications for the Prison Service."
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