GERMANY: AIRCRAFT CARRYING RELEASED ISRAELI AND HIZBOLLAH PRISONERS LEAVES TEL AVIV AND LEBANON

Record ID: 400446

  • Title: GERMANY: AIRCRAFT CARRYING RELEASED ISRAELI AND HIZBOLLAH PRISONERS LEAVES TEL AVIV AND LEBANON
  • Date: 29th January 2004
  • Summary: (U4) COLOGNE, GERMANY (JANUARY 29, 2004) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 1. LUFTHANSA AIRCRAFT TAXIING BEFORE TAKE OFF, OBSCURED BY TREES IN FOREGROUND 0.33 (W5) COLOGNE, GERMANY (JANUARY 29, 2004) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 2. VARIOUS OF LUFTHANSA AIRCRAFT TAKING OFF 1.13 3. VARIOUS OF ISRAELI AIR FORCE PLANE BACKING OUT OF HANGAR (2 SHOTS)
  • Embargoed: 13th February 2004 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: COLOGNE, GERMANY
  • Country: Germany
  • Reuters ID: LVAAJQM8WQTGSWF3UUBFR6C32D82
  • Story Text: Aircraft carrying Israeli and Hizbollah prisoners
    take off from Cologne airport heading for Beirut and Tel
    Aviv.



    EDITORS PLEASE NOTE: WE ARE UNABLE TO IDENTIFY ACCURATELY
    WHICH SPECIFIC PLANES ARE CARRYING RELEASED PRISONERS HOME
    TO LEBANON AND ISRAEL.


    Israel and Hizbollah guerrilla foes carried out a
    long-awaited prisoner swap on Thursday (January 29) that
    brought hundreds of jailed Arabs home to shouts of joy in
    return for a kidnapped Israeli and three dead soldiers.

    Under the German-mediated deal, three years in the
    making, Arab prisoners swapped planes at an air base in
    Cologne with freed businessman Elhanan Tannenbaum and the
    wooden coffins bearing the soldiers abducted at the border
    in 2000.

    They took off for Beirut and Tel Aviv after Israel also
    released 400 Palestinian prisoners to tearful homecomings
    in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Key to the exchange had
    been the forensic identifications of the soldiers.

    Most of the Palestinians had been seized during three
    years of violence. Many had little time left to serve on
    their sentences. There are at least 7,000 Palestinians
    detained in Israeli jails.

    A suicide bombing that killed 10 people in Jerusalem on
    Thursday, the day after an Israeli raid that left eight
    dead in Gaza City, threw a new shadow over a renewed U.S.

    peace drive.

    Most of the Arabs flown from Israel to Germany on the
    first leg of the exchange were Lebanese. A German convert
    to Islam jailed in 1997 as a Hizbollah agent was also
    freed. In addition, Israel sent the bodies of 59 guerrillas
    overland to Lebanon.

    Tannenbaum, whose hair appeared to have greyed over
    three years of captivity, told Reuters he had gone to
    Lebanon on business and to seek information on Israeli air
    force navigator Ron Arad, who bailed out during a mission
    in 1986. He said Hizbollah had treated him well.

    Some Israelis were concerned the deal could encourage
    more kidnappings by Hizbollah, branded as terrorists by
    Washington.

    Two prominent Lebanese militiamen, Sheikh Abdel-Karim
    Obeid and Mustafa Dirani, who were abducted in 1989 and
    1994 to help secure Arad's release, were among those to be
    repatriated. But there was bitterness that the
    longest-serving prisoner, Samir al-Qantar, was not to be
    freed yet.

    His release could hinge on whether Israel gets
    information on airman Arad, who Israelis say was handed by
    Lebanese guerrillas to their Iranian backers and might
    still be alive. Iran says it has no information on his
    fate. Hizbollah said Qantar could be freed in two to three
    months.

    jrc/sw






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