TEL AVIV - The Israel Prison Service is looking into building kindergartens inside prisons to accommodate the children of settlers arrested during the upcoming pullout, Ynet has learned.

Prison officials told Ynet the plan was discussed in recent interoffice committee meetings, in a bid to prepare for the possibility that some settler children could be left alone should both their parents be arrested during evacuation.

The committee meets on a daily basis in preparation for disengagement.

By law, children under the age of two are permitted to stay with their parents in prison. However, prison officials said the Justice Ministry would have to decide how to handle older children.

Unofficially, they said, they are considering the possibility of allowing children to stay with their parents in prison and are even looking into establishing kindergartens for them.

900 extra beds ready

Internal Security Minister Gideon Ezra told Ynet the Prison Service would not abandon children whose parents have been arrested.

"I hope no one will be arrested, but if

people are arrested they (prisons) will have to find an arrangement for them," he said. "We will transfer the children to their parents. We will not abandon them."

For the past three months, both the Maasiyahu prison in Ramle and Dekel prison near Beer Sheva have been preparing for pullout protesters; more than 900 additional beds have been set up.

'We will worry about food and diapers'

In addition, the Prison Service will accommodate the needs of religious settlers and plans to hold women separately from men.

The prisons will also refrain from treating disengagement detainees as "regular criminals" and, therefore, the level of security in the detention facilities would not be as high.

Prison officials also said that children under the age of two would receive all the necessities required, from food to diapers, if they are sent to prison with their parents.

"If there's a need, a baby would be placed with its mother in prison according to the law - as criminal convicts detained in prison are permitted," a prison official said.

According to prison officials, government and disengagement officials have not made a decision on the fate of children over the age of two. However, they said, the prisons would be able to absorb the children together with their parents in a matter of hours should the decision be approved.

"Within hours we would provide them with the necessities they need as children, even if it means kindergartens and schools," one prison official said. "At this stage we have not physically started to prepare, as at present no decision has been made."  

- Eli Senyor, Raanan Ben-Zur and Efrat Weiss contributed to this report