The Israeli public prosecution filed attempted murder charges Thursday against Palestinian prisoner Islam Wishahi, 36, who stabbed two guards last month at Ketziot prison.
According to the indictment, Wishahi tried to kill prison guards in retaliation to attempts by Israeli authorities to stop prisoners from using contraband cellphones in the prison. He prepared two shivs from pieces of metal he cut from food trays in the prison and hid them under his mattress.
While prisoners were being transferred to a different prison wing for a search of their belongings, he took one of the shivs out of his pocket and charged a prison guard, stabbing him in the neck. A second officer rushed over and managed to restrain the prisoner, who stabbed him in the shoulder.
One of them is in critical condition.
“Wishahi is charged with attempted murder and aggravated assault of prison guards on religious, political, nationalistic and ideological grounds,” according to the indictment.
Wishahi, from Jenin, was arrested in 2002 after being wanted for months by authorities over his involvement in the military battle at the Jenin refugee camp in late March of that same year. He managed to escape, but in December 2002 he was arrested for escorting a Palestinian youth who planned on carrying out a suicide attack in an Israeli city.
Wishahi is serving a 19-year sentence.
He is considered a Hamas prisoner and was moved around several prisons. Israeli prion authorities have deprived him of family visits, except for his mother, under the pretext that such meetings threaten state security.
Palestinian prisoners have started an open-ended hunger strike, prompting Israeli authorities to round them all in one prison, the location of which was not disclosed. The prison authorities have kicked off negotiations over their demands despite Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan’s declaration that he will refuses to offer concessions to the inmates.
