ISRAEL/SYRIA/GOLAN HEIGHTS: Druze residents of occupied Golan Heights voice support for frred Lebanese prisoner Samir Qantar

Record ID: 279918

  • Title: ISRAEL/SYRIA/GOLAN HEIGHTS: Druze residents of occupied Golan Heights voice support for frred Lebanese prisoner Samir Qantar
  • Date: 25th November 2008
  • Summary: MAN PUTTING THE SYRIAN FLAG/ IN THE BACKGROUND, VIEW OF RALLY ON SYRIAN CONTROLLED SIDE OF GOLAN HEIGHTS AS SEEN FROM ISRAELI CONTROLLED SIDE VARIOUS OF GOLAN HEIGHTS' SYRIANS GATHERING TO SUPPORT QANTAR AS SEEN FROM THE ISRAELI CONTROLLED SIDE
  • Embargoed: 10th December 2008 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: Crime / Law Enforcement,International Relations
  • Reuters ID: LVA4QLUMD462ZF6UM8XQPH1X8TTC
  • Story Text: Druze residents of the occupied Golan Heights voice support for Lebanese prisoner, Samir Qantar, recently released by Israel.
    Hundreds of Druze residents of the occupied Golan Heights voiced support on Monday (November 24) for Lebanese prisoner, Samir Qantar, recently released by Israel in a prisoner swap deal.

    "The aim of this rally is to emphasize the resistance against the occupation and to express our belief in the ideology of freedom in the entire Arab world," Samir Qantar's Lawyer, Yamen Zidan, told Reuters Television.
    Waving Syrian flags, several hundreds of residents of the occupied Golan Heights gathered at a hilltop known as the "shouting hill" in Majdal Shams village to voice support for Qantar, Israel's longest-held Lebanese detainee.
    "Samir Qantar was born in Lebanon but the continuation of his resistance is in Palestine," the head of the northern branch of the Islamic movement in Israel, Raed Salah, said.
    Qantar, who was serving a life sentence for a deadly 1979 raid on northern Israel by a Palestinian guerrilla group, returned to Lebanon under a prisoner swap deal, which brought to Israel the bodies of two captured Israeli soldiers.
    Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had described Qantar as the last bargaining chip for word on the fate of Israeli airman Ron Arad, who disappeared after bailing out during a bombing run on Lebanon in 1986.
    Qantar addressed supporters on the Golan Heights in Syria.
    "Samir Qantar wants to meet with the Golan residents in the border between Israel and Syria to see the residents in the occupied Golan Heights.
    He wants to contact the Golan residents who mean a lot to him. He also means a lot to us. Samir is an Arab fighter and hero," said Wafa Bathish, who attended the rally.
    Syria has demanded the return of the Golan Heights, a plateau overlooking Damascus on one side and the Sea of Galilee on the other. Israel captured the territory in a 1967 war, annexing it in 1981 in a move not recognised internationally.
    Israeli-Syrian peace talks, last held in 2000 in the United States, collapsed over control of the shoreline of the Sea of Galilee, Israel's biggest reservoir.
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