Hizbullah ups the ante
With the first phase of the prisoner swap successfully completed, sights are now focussed on new horizons. Mohalhel Fakih reports
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Prisoners, later released during the week end in a swap between Israel and Hizbullah, peek out from bus windows in preparation for their final departure
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An Israeli-held detainee who became a national hero in Lebanon, Sheikh Abdul-Karim Obeid led Eid Al-Adha prayers in his hometown of Jibshit on Sunday, for the first time in 15 years.
"I am free from the hands of the enemy due to the blessings and the blood of the martyrs that was spilled," said Obeid, who was released last Thursday. Also freed from Israeli jails were 22 other Lebanese and Arabs, as well as 400 Palestinians, as part of a high-profile swap with Israel.
In exchange, Hizbullah released Israeli reserve colonel and businessman Elhanan Tannenbaum, and returned the bodies of three Israeli soldiers. A day later, the bodies of 60 Lebanese and Palestinian fighters killed during Israel's occupation of southern Lebanon were delivered to their families. Villages across southern Lebanon held solemn funeral ceremonies for the slain fighters.
Obeid had been held in administrative detention by Israel for more than a decade, as a bargaining chip for information on missing Israeli airman Ron Arad, who went missing in Lebanon in 1986.
Obeid was composed during the Eid Al-Adha prayers in Jibshit, urging the crowd to be "patient" and "work diligently" to regain their "rights". His tone was no less passionate than before he was kidnapped by an Israeli commando from the village in 1989.
Upon arriving at Beirut International Airport on Thursday, where thousands of Lebanese were gathered to welcome him, Obeid proclaimed a "defeat" for Israel and called for the release of Samir Qontar. He remains behind bars, and his fate is at the centre of the newly launched stage two of Israel's agreement with Hizbullah. In 1980, an Israeli court sentenced Qontar to a 542-year prison term for an attack in northern Israel.
Since the German-mediated prisoner exchange agreement was announced, Hizbullah has threatened to kidnap more Israeli soldiers, as it did in October 2000 from the border region, to swap them for Qontar and two other Lebanese. Israel has refused to release Nessim Nesr, who also holds Israeli citizenship, and denies that it is detaining Yahya Skaff.
Hizbullah Secretary-General Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah vowed to bring all three men back home, as well as the bodies of fighters he said Israel continues to hold. Israel warned Nasrallah against making good on his threat.
"When we talk of the remaining martyrs' bodies we are speaking of dozens, at least," Nasrallah told Hizbullah supporters and the families of 11 fighters who were killed in southern Lebanon before Israel ended its 22-year occupation of the region in May 2000.
Nasrallah, who had declared victory less than 48 hours earlier in Beirut's southern suburbs, where the newly released detainees and some ten thousand celebrating Lebanese gathered, decided to proceed to phase two of the swap.
"We have agreed to continue with this path in order to complete the second phase of negotiations," August Hanning, head of Germany's BND intelligence service, was quoted as saying after meeting Nasrallah. At the same time German mediator Ernst Uhrlau met in Israel with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. Uhrlau told the German press that he expects "the resolution of [Ron] Arad's problem in two or three months".
Hizbullah and Israel agreed to create two committees to determine Arad's fate, release the remaining Lebanese held in Israel and investigate the whereabouts of four Iranian diplomats who were captured by Christian militiamen -- at the time allied to Israel, during its 1982 invasion of Lebanon. Iran and Hizbullah accuse Israel of holding them. Israel is also seeking the return of the bodies of five soldiers who disappeared in 1982 in Lebanon.
Tehran has not been keeping a low profile in the ongoing swap. Nasrallah paid tribute to the Islamic Republic for its role in the deal, and a high-powered delegation, led by Ali Akbar Mohtashami, deputy speaker of Iran's parliament, attended Hizbullah ceremonies throughout Lebanon marking the return of the Lebanese prisoners.
Iran has insistently been pressing for the release of the four diplomats. Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi will meet top officials in Beirut this week for talks on the swap. "We are hopeful that in the second phase, a committee will be established to pursue the fate of the four Iranian diplomats and therefore I will soon go to Lebanon to pursue the matter," Kharazi said.
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had praised Hizbullah, which is backed by Iran. "This is yet another movement showing that the evil Zionist regime can be defeated by the strong wills and concrete faiths of the mujahidin of Islam, and I hope that the rest of the prisoners will be freed," Khamenei said in a letter to Nasrallah.
Syria was also dragged into the foray. The family of former Israeli spy Eli Cohen, who was executed in Syria nearly 40 years ago, kicked-off a campaign to lobby for the return of his remains from Syria. Cohen was caught spying for Israel in Damascus and hanged in 1965. Damascus is already under heavy US and Israeli pressure to cut its backing for Hizbullah, deemed a "foreign terrorist" organisation by Washington, but acclaimed as a legitimate resistance force in Beirut and Damascus.
Last week, US Secretary of State Colin Powell urged Syria to stop supporting Hizbullah and various Palestinian factions, in return for better ties with Washington and renewed peace negotiations with the Jewish state.
"Syria cannot be serious about wanting a better relationship with Israel, the United States or anyone else, as long as it serves as any kind of a trans-shipment point for weapons that are going to terrorists of the kind who killed innocent people this morning in Jerusalem," Powell said, alluding to last Thursday's bombing that killed 10 people in Jerusalem. Damascus has always rejected US allegations and called on the George W Bush administration to help launch peace talks with Israel.
In another twist to an already complex regional affair, on the day that the families of fighters received their bodies as part of the swap, the Islamic Jihad claimed that two Palestinians, who killed six Israelis in an attack in northern Israel two years ago, had crossed the border from Lebanon. The group said that Mohamed Abdel-Wahhab and Ghassan Al-Jadaa carried out the 12 March 2002 attack close to Shlomi. This is the first time Islamic Jihad has reported that its activists have crossed into Israel from Lebanon since the latest Palestinian Intifada erupted.
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The recent prisoner swap between Israel and Hizbullah has exposed some worrying truths about conditions endured by political prisoners, and raises questions about who are behind these bars today. Jonathan Cook, in Tel Aviv, writes
