Palestinian prisoners' group urges accountability amid reports Israel 'beating' captured escapees

The head of a Palestinian prisoners' rights group has urged accountability over the welfare of the Gilboa Prison escapees after it was announced that all six of them are back in custody.

Qaddura Fares, head of the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society (PPS), said on Sunday that the  Israel is fully responsible for the lives of the Palestinian escapees were recaptured after their  prison break earlier this month.

Speaking during a solidarity visit to the homes of the captured six prisoners, Fares said there are concerns regarding the lives of the six prisoners, Zakaria Zubeidi, Mahmoud Arda, Mohammad Arda, Yaaqob Qadri, Ayham Kammaji and Munadel Nufeiat, especially amid reports that some of them were subjected to acute beating and torture at the time of their re-detention.

He called on the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to visit the prisoners and examine their medical condition.

On Sunday, the Israeli army announced that it had recaptured the last two Palestinian escapees involved in the jailbreak earlier this month.

At the beginning of September, six Palestinian inmates escaped Gilboa prison in Israel's north, through a tunnel dug under a sink in a cell, reportedly using cutlery utensils.

Israel launched a massive manhunt, deploying drones, road checkpoints and pouring troops into the occupied West Bank.  

Authorities had already arrested four of the six, and in a tweet on Sunday, said the last two had surrendered "after being surrounded by security forces that acted precisely based on accurate intelligence".