MIDDLE EAST: ISRAEL CONTINUES TRANSFER OF ARAB AND PALESTINIAN PRISONERS AHEAD OF PRISONER EXCHANGE BETWEEN ISRAEL AND HIZBOLLAH
Record ID:
400039
MIDDLE EAST: ISRAEL CONTINUES TRANSFER OF ARAB AND PALESTINIAN PRISONERS AHEAD OF PRISONER EXCHANGE BETWEEN ISRAEL AND HIZBOLLAH
- Title: MIDDLE EAST: ISRAEL CONTINUES TRANSFER OF ARAB AND PALESTINIAN PRISONERS AHEAD OF PRISONER EXCHANGE BETWEEN ISRAEL AND HIZBOLLAH
- Date: 27th January 2004
- Summary: (W6) KZIOT PRISON, SOUTHERN ISRAEL (JANUARY 27, 2004) (REUTERS) 1. FIRST BUS FROM OFER MILITARY CAMP ARRIVING AT KZIOT PRISON AHEAD OF THURSDAY'S RELEASE 0.11 2. CU: PALESTINIAN MAN IN WINDOW 0.18 3. PAN: SECOND BUS FROM OFER MILITARY CAMP ARRIVING AT KZIOT 0.36 (U4) HEBRON, WEST BANK (JANUARY 27, 2004) (REUTERS) 4. WIDE O
- Embargoed: 11th February 2004 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: KZIOT MILITARY PRISON CAMP, SOUTHERN ISRAEL; HEBRON AND RAMALLAH, WEST BANK/ JERUSALEM
- City:
- Country: Palestinian Territories
- Reuters ID: LVA44GGI8KP11P6WD6022Z35LTCD
- Story Text: Israel begins to transfer Arab and Palestinian prisoners ahead
of Thursday's prisoner exchange between
Israel and the Hizbollah.
Israel on Tuesday (January 27, 2004) began transferring
Arab and Palestinian prisoners to different military camps
ahead of an expected prison swap with Hizbollah set to take
place on Thursday (January 29).
The Prisons Service has named 436 prisoners, most of
them Palestinians, to be freed in return for an Israeli
businessman held by Hizbollah and three Israeli troops
presumed dead after they were abducted while on border
patrol in 2000.
400 Palestinians are due for release, along with 23
Lebanese and 12 from other Arab countries, as well as one
German, Steven Josef Smyrek, a German convert to Islam
convicted of planning to carry out a suicide attack in
Israel on behalf of Hizbollah in 1997.
Some of the Palestinians arrived at Kziot jail in
southern Israel after leaving Ofer military prison camp,
near the West Bank city of Ramallah, on Tuesday morning.
The 35 non-Palestinian Arabs along with the German
prisoner were moved to Hasharon Prison in central Israel
and are scheduled to be flown to Germany on Thursday
(January 29). The German had been convicted by Israel of
spying for Hizbollah.
The Palestinians are to be released into the West Bank
and Gaza Strip. Israel will also hand over the bodies of 59
Lebanese militants killed in clashes with Israeli troops.
Following Thursday's swap, Israel is to return the
remains of 59 Arab guerrillas killed in action to their
next-of-kin.
Families celebrated in the West Bank and Gaza Strip at
news that their loved ones would soon be coming home.
In the West Bank city of Hebron family members
anxiously waited for their family members to return.
Mustafa Darwish, the father of member of Al Aqsa
brigade being held in Israeli jail said: "My feeling is
that I can't control myself. I can't control my happiness.
I heard the good news last night. When I woke his mother,
she ran around barefoot, and then we told his wife and
children."
Mustafa's wife Nabila said she just planning trip to
visit him in jail.
"When I heard the news I was so happy. And hopefully
one day everybody will be released. We thank (Hizbollah
leader) Nasrallah and we hope that those prisoners with
long sentences will be released. I was very surprised to
hear that he will be released. I had even prepared to visit
him." she said.
In Jerusalem, President Moshe Katsav was handed a list
of the Palestinian prisoners due for release.
But one prisoner to be released on Thursday cannot
rejoice.
Mustafa Dirani, a former Lebanese militia chief told a
court on Tuesday he had been forcibly sodomised by Israeli
secret service torturers who then left him shackled and
soaking in excrement for almost two weeks.
Handcuffed, Dirani sat impassively in court as
photographers swarmed over him and said that this was the
first time in four years of detention that he had been
gi
ven a legal hearing. Dirani's testimony was brought
forward to Tuesday of his planned return to Lebanon in two
days in the prisoner exchange.
Dirani was captured in south Lebanon in 1994 by
Israelis seeking information on missing airman Ron Arad.
Dirani's now defunct Amal militia captured Arad in 1986 and
Israel says Dirani handed the airman to the Iranians.
Dirani described his alleged sodomy by a soldier at the
orders of an intelligence officer codenamed "George", and
another incident in which he said a police baton was
inserted into his rectum. He is claiming six million
shekels (1.34 million United States dollars) in
compensation over his 1994 interrogation.
"Israel accuses me, but that doesn't mean anything to
me. I'm saying that Israel occupied Lebanon and killed
people and children and then forced people to scatter. It's
killed tens of thousands of people and is still killing
people and occupying land. It is defying sovereign sea and
air space. Everybody sees this, so you ask me what Israel
thinks? I don't care about Israel," Dirani said.
"What I did to Arad was human. What Israel is doing to
me is not human," Dirani added.
It is not known whether Arad is dead or alive.
Israeli prosecutor Shammai Becker said Dirani's
accusations "have no basis whatsoever," and said he was
making the claims to justify to his countrymen the
information he divulged to Israel after being captured.
Palestinians say prisoner amnesties are key to
salvaging a U.S.-led peace "road map" battered by
bloodshed, but Israelis, bereaved by militant attacks,
vowed to contest the release roster in the High Court of
Justice, with fears the deal could encourage more Hizbollah
kidnappings.
They acknowledge that a challenge in the High Court of
Justice is unlikely to prevent anyone being released, but
are scouring the roster of those to be freed so as to
appeal against freeing specific prisoners.
Joyce Boim a mother of a sixteen-year-old Israeli boy
who was shot in the head and killed by Palestinian gunmen,
warned of repercussions.
"All I can see is future Kvareem (Hebrew word for
graves) to be dug for our people", she said.
"Because every time there's been a prisoner exchange,
any time terrorists are let out, we pay with blood. Another
point: why are we giving into terror? They can kill us,
they can murder us, they can maim us but they know a couple
of years later there will be some kind of prisoner exchange
and they'll be let out. What's going to stop them now?"
Meanwhile, senior Egyptian officials held talks with
Palestinian President Yasser Arafat as part of the new
flurry of diplomacy.
The visit by Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher and
intelligence chief Omar Suleiman coincided with U.S. envoy
John Wolf's return to the region for a low-key round of
talks with both sides.
A Palestinian official said the Egyptians came to
Arafat's battered headquarters to ask Arafat to help
restart talks with Palestinian militants to forge a
ceasefire in their attacks on Israelis, considered crucial
to the road map.
The official said Maher and Suleiman were also pressing
Arafat to take security steps to push the process forward.
The road map calls on Palestinians to rein in militants
who have waged a campaign of suicide bombings against
Israel. The plan requires Israel to uproot dozens of Jewish
settler outposts built on occupied land, halt construction
in 150 larger settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip
and ease the hardships of Palestinians penned in by
military blockades.
Each side has accused the other of non-compliance and
the road map, which calls for creation of a Palestinian
state by 2005 alongside a secure Israel, so far has gone
nowhere.
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