Terror Breakout

But for former Israeli military personnel who served in Gaza in the ’80s, including myself, the prison break had eerie parallels to an even more sensational escape that occurred over 30 years ago, on May 18, 1987. With just a few changes to names and places, it’s hard to tell one incident from the other.

Then, as now, six prisoners escaped under cover of a dark night. In both breakouts, the group belonged to the Islamic Jihad terror organization. Most unbelievable of all, the police minister back then was former chief of staff Chaim Bar Lev, father of current public security minister Omar Bar Lev, himself a former high-ranking IDF officer.

Strange parallels aside, the long-forgotten incident raises warning flags about the current unrest on the Palestinian street. As in the Gilboa breakout, the incident was heralded by signs of unrest after a long period of relative calm. Then it was mostly stabbing attacks against Israeli civilians who entered the Gaza Strip for shopping; today it’s rockets and incendiary balloons from Gaza, as well as a growing number of shooting attacks targeting Israeli security forces in Judea and Samaria, especially around Jenin.

The 1987 incident severely rattled the country, and in a sense its reverberations continue to be felt today. Because that jailbreak has entered Gazan lore as the trigger for the First Intifada and the decades of bloodletting since.