An Israeli court on Sunday sentenced six Palestinian detainees to five years in prison for tunneling out of a maximum-security jail facility last year. The court also slapped the six prisoners with a fine of 5,000 shekels ($1,500), the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)-run Commission for Detainees and Ex-Detainees' Affairs said in a statement. The six detainees escaped from their cell in the high-security Gilboa prison in northern Israel in September 2021. They were recaptured a few days later. Five of the detainees are members of Islamic Jihad group, while the sixth is a member of the Fatah movement of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. The jailbreak has brought Israel's prison service under fire and prompted the government to launch an investigation. *Writing by Ahmed Asmar -
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