By Arye Green/TPS • 11 September, 2019

Israeli prison guards over the past two days have thwarted several attempts by Arab detainees to smuggle 12 cell-phones to imprisoned terrorists in the Offer Prison, situated north of Jerusalem.

The smugglers were arrested after committing minor offenses, which allowed them the opportunity to smuggle the phones into prison. In the screening process, the cell-phones were found inside their body, as they attempted to conceal them from the guards.

Cell-phone smuggling into high-security prisons has become a phenomenon that the Israel Prison Service (IPS) has been combating increasingly for the past year.

According to the IPS, since the beginning of 2019 168 attempted cell-phone smuggling operations have been thwarted. The detainees, usually minors, commit small offenses with the objective of being arrested so that they have the opportunity to smuggle the phones to security prisoners.

The cell-phones are then used by terrorists in prison to orchestrate terror attacks and maintain the connections with the terror network they were a part of.

Rafi Gena, commander of the Offer Prison, said in a statement that “the attempts to smuggle cell-phones and banned equipment into jails continue all the while. Thanks to good professional work by our guards, we are able to thwart the attempts to smuggle the phones and prevent the terror activity from prison.”

The young detainees trying to smuggle the phones into prison over the past year are following in the footsteps of former Israeli Member of Knesset (MK) Basel Ghattas, an Arab-Israeli who two and half years ago was found to have smuggled cell-phones to prisoners who were involved in terror efforts while in prison, and in doing so aided terrorism.

Ghattas was sentenced to two years in prison and has recently been released. He showed no remorse for his actions upon release.