Ofer Prison

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Ofer Prison (Hebrew: כלא עופר‎ Kele Ofer), formerly officially known as Incarceration Facility 386 (מתקן כליאה 386), is an Israeli incarceration facility (מתקן כליאה mitkan kli'a, abbr. Matak) located in the West Bank, between Ramallah/Beituniya and Giv'at Ze'ev. It is one of three facilities of the same nature, including the Megiddo and Ktzi'ot prisons.

Ofer Prison is run by the Israel Prison Service and like the other two facilities, used to operated by the Israel Defense Forces' Military Police Corps.

It is capable of holding up to 800 prisoners, both tried and those under administrative detention.

1 History
2 Staff
- 2.1 Commanders
3 References

[edit] History

Camp Ofer was originally founded in December 1968, on the ruins of Camp Yardeni, a base which was located there before the Six-Day War. It was named after lieutenant colonel Zvi Ofer, the commander of the Haruv Reconnaissance Unit, who was killed in action earlier in the same year.

The prison was built in the base in 1988, after the onset of the First Intifada. Following the Oslo Accords, and the numerous prisoner releases of 1995, Ofer's remaining prisoners and detainees were moved to Megiddo Prison, and Ofer was closed.

It was finally officially re-opened on March 29, 2002, as part of Operation Defensive Shield. Its full construction was set to be completed on August 10, 2002.

On October 3, 2006, control of Ofer Prison was moved to the Israel Prison Service, making it the last incarceration facility for Palestinians to be moved to the IPS (although two detention centers in the West Bank are still controlled by the Military Police Corps).

[edit] Staff

As of 2006, Ofer Prison is staffed by the Israel Prison Service, which took control of it in 2006. The staff consists of jailors and officers, as well as a contingent of IPS's special unit, Metzada, and interrogators from the Shabak.^{[citation needed]}

Before IPS, the prison was run by the IDF's Military Police Corps. The staff included soldiers who completed the Palestinian detainees' jailors (Hebrew: מטפלי עצורי השטחים‎ metaplei atzurei hashetahim) course, including the Company for Special Tasks (abbr. Palmam). The prison as a whole was a battalion-level unit, commanded by a lieutenant colonel.