Six Palestinian convicts were sentenced to five years in jail on Sunday by an Israeli court for burrowing out of their cell last year and escaping from a high-security facility in the largest prison escape in decades.

The prisonbreak triggered a large manhunt throughout the country’s north and the occupied West Bank to find the men, who were members of Palestinian terrorist groups. They were apprehended some days later.

The daring escape dominated newscasts caused harsh criticism of Israel’s jail system and forced the government to begin an investigation.

According to multiple stories, the guys constructed an undetectable tunnel under the floor of their shared cell for several months before slipping past a sleeping jail guard after exiting through a hole outside the institution.

The judge determined that the punishment took into consideration the fact that the jailbreak immobilized the country for days, the costs of recapturing the detainees, and the harm to public security caused by prisoners serving life sentences and convicted of major crimes escaping.

The five-year penalty will be added to the convicts’ existing sentences. Five other convicts who were charged with helping the guys received an extra four years in prison.

Israel considers all six of the escapees to be terrorists. Five of them are from the Islamic Jihad militant group, with four of them serving life sentences. The sixth, Zakaria Zubeidi, is a member of the secular Fatah group of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Zubeidi was a militant leader during the second Palestinian uprising in the early 2000s and was well known in Israel both for his militant activity and his love for giving media interviews.

Palestinians consider prisoners held by Israel to be heroes of their national cause and many on social media celebrated the escape and held demonstrations in support of the prisoners.

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