MIDDLE EAST: ISRAEL BEGINS TRANSFER OF ARAB AND PALESTINIAN PRISONERS AHEAD OF UPCOMING PRISONER EXCHANGE BETWEEN ISRAEL AND HIZBOLLAH

Record ID: 400834

  • Title: MIDDLE EAST: ISRAEL BEGINS TRANSFER OF ARAB AND PALESTINIAN PRISONERS AHEAD OF UPCOMING PRISONER EXCHANGE BETWEEN ISRAEL AND HIZBOLLAH
  • Date: 27th January 2004
  • Summary: (U4) OFFER PRISON, NEAR RAMALLAH, WEST BANK (JANUARY 27, 2004) (REUTERS) 1. VARIOUS OF BLUE ISRAELI PRISON BUS CARRYING PALESTINIANS DETAINEES TO BE TRANSFERRED TO KTZIOT PRISON AHEAD OF RELEASE ON THURSDAY (JANUARY 29) (2 SHOTS) 0.35 (W4) HASHARON PRISON, CENTRAL ISRAEL (JANUARY 27, 2004) (REUTERS) 2. VARIOUS OF BUS WITH ARAB PRISONERS
  • Embargoed: 11th February 2004 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: OFFER PRISON, WEST BANK; HASHARON PRISON, CENTRAL ISRAEL; HEBRON & RAMALLAH, WEST BANK
  • City:
  • Country: Palestinian Territories
  • Reuters ID: LVAEZ3MLT7GJQNTAG0AIY4G25FYX
  • 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) 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 convicted of spying for Hizbollah.

    Some Palestinian prisoners left Offer prison on Tuesday
    (January 27), near the West Bank city of Ramallah, en route
    to the Israeli jail named Ktziot in preparation for the
    release. Those destined for transfer to Germany arrived at
    Hasharon prison in central Israel.

    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.

    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.

    Palestinians say prisoner amnesties are key to
    salvaging a U.S.-led peace "road map" battered by
    bloodshed.

    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
    given 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) 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.

    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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