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In Pictures

Gallery|Israel-Palestine conflict

Spoons become a new symbol of Palestinian resistance

An artist works on a mural painting glorifying six Palestinian prisoners who escaped from Israel's Gilboa prison in September 2021 with the help of the humble spoon [Mahmud Hams/AFP]
An artist in Gaza City works on a mural glorifying six Palestinian prisoners who escaped from Israel's Gilboa prison. [Mahmud Hams/AFP]
Published On 19 Sep 202119 Sep 2021
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Spoons are being brandished alongside traditional flags and banners as a Palestinian resistance symbol after six prisoners carried out a spectacular jailbreak through a tunnel they reportedly dug using the utensil.

When the six Palestinian political prisoners escaped on September 6 from the high-security Gilboa prison, social networks shared images of a tunnel at the foot of a sink and a hole outside. All six were eventually recaptured.

According to his lawyer, one of the re-arrested Palestinians, Mahmoud Abdullah al-Ardah, said he used spoons, plates, and even the handle of a kettle to dig the tunnel from his cell.

He began scraping his way out from the northern Israeli institution in December, the lawyer, Ruslan Mahajaneh, said.

“With determination, vigilance … and cunning – and with a spoon – it was possible to dig a tunnel through which the Palestinians escaped and the enemy was imprisoned,” writer Sari Orabi said on the Arabi 21 website.

In Tulkarem, a city in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, the escape brought back memories for Ghassan Mahdawi. He and another prisoner escaped from an Israeli prison in 1996 through a tunnel dug using not kitchen implements but nails.

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“To escape from an Israeli prison is something each inmate thinks about,” Mahdawi said. To have done it with a spoon, he added, is something that “will go down in history”.

A person holds up a spoon, reportedly the tool used by six Palestinian prisoners to dig an escape tunnel out of Israel's Gilboa prison, during a gathering in front of the Dome of the Rock mosque. [Ahmad Gharabli/AFP]
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Palestinian protesters hold up spoons as they confront Israeli security forces following a demonstration in the West Bank village of Beita. [Jaafar Ashtiyeh/AFP]
Kuwaiti artist Maitham Abdal works on a sculpture named Spoon of Freedom to honour Palestinian prisoners who escaped from an Israeli maximum-security prison. [Yasser al-Zayyat/AFP]
Palestinian citizens of Israel lift Palestinian flags and spoons as they demonstrate in the mostly Palestinian city of Umm al-Fahm in northern Israel to denounce punitive measures taken by the Israel Prison Service against Palestinian prisoners following the jailbreak. [Jack Gues/AFP]
Palestinian citizens of Israel hold up spoons as they protest in the mostly Palestinian city of Umm al-Fahm in northern Israel. The six Palestinian prisoners escaped through a tunnel on September 6 from the high-security Gilboa prison. [Jack Gues/AFP]
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At least one of the re-arrested Palestinian political prisoners has told his lawyer he is being subjected to physical and mental abuse by Israeli interrogators. [Jack Gues/AFP]
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A demonstrator holds up a spoon during a rally in solidarity with the six Palestinian political prisoners in Khan Yunis. [Said Khatib/AFP]


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