According to press sources, the occupation forces stormed, in Ashkelon prison, last night, the cell of the prisoner Mahmoud Al-Ardah, the commander of Operation “Freedom Tunnel” in Gilboa Prison.
The sources added that “units of the so-called Israeli Prison Service stormed his cell and wreaked havoc there, and confiscated all his possessions, private papers and writings.”
It is noteworthy that the prisoner, Mahmoud Al-Ardah (47 years), from the town of Arraba, south of Jenin, entered his twenty-seventh year in the occupation prisons.
The occupation forces arrested the captive, Al-Ardah, on September 21, 1996. The Occupation Court issued a life sentence in addition to 15 years imprisonment for him, on charges of participating in resistance operations.
The sources added that the casual prisoner is subjected to very harsh practices in his isolation in Raymond prison, and that the prison administration seeks to isolate him from everything around him, by depriving him of visits, so that he is transferred during the visit time, or his family is prevented from visiting him, claiming that they are prohibited by security.
It is noteworthy that the prisoner, Mahmoud Al-Ardah, is one of the heroes of the “Freedom Tunnel” operation, during which 6 Palestinian prisoners, most of whom were sentenced to life imprisonment, were able to wrest their freedom from “Gilboa” prison, after they dug a tunnel in which work lasted for many months, according to Israeli estimates.