Israel, Hezbollah exchange prisoners
BEIRUT -- Israel and Lebanon's militant Hezbollah group exchanged prisoners and human remains yesterday in a much-anticipated repatriation that spelled freedom for hundreds of Palestinians and other Arabs and bolstered Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah's standing in the Arab world.
Nasrallah and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon traded threats, but the swap went off without a hitch even as a Palestinian suicide bomber killed 10 people in an attack on a bus in central Jerusalem hours before.
In Israel, Sharon and other Cabinet ministers attended a welcome-home ceremony for businessman Elhanan Tannenbaum, who was abducted by Hezbollah 3 1/2 years ago, and also received the bodies of three soldiers killed by the group in a 2000 border ambush.
In exchange, Israel freed more than 400 Palestinians to their homes in the West Bank and Gaza, returned 21 Lebanese to Beirut, including two top militia leaders, and released seven other Arabs and a German national. Israel also turned over the remains of 60 Lebanese militants as part of the deal.
Tens of thousands of Hezbollah supporters lined the streets near Beirut's international airport to greet the 21 former prisoners, who flew from Tel Aviv to Cologne, Germany, where mediators oversaw completion of the deal, before heading to Lebanon.
"Hezbollah gains a good deal of power from this exchange," said Danny Yatom, a former chief of Israel's Mossad security service and a lawmaker from the center-left Labor Party. "Nasrallah manages to appear as the protector of the Arab world in general and the Palestinians in particular."
German intelligence coordinator Ernst Uhrlau helped broker the deal during three years of quiet mediation, carrying offers and counteroffers between Beirut and Jerusalem. Officials said no direct contact was made between Israelis and representatives of Hezbollah.
A missing Israeli airman and a Lebanese militant were not part of the deal, but the two sides said their fate would be addressed in a later stage.
Israel and Hezbollah fought a war in southern Lebanon for 18 years, until the Jewish state withdrew troops from a swath of Lebanese land in 2000. Tensions have since eased significantly but occasionally flare up near a disputed area known as Shebaa Farms.
Shebaa was the site of the ambush in October 2000 that killed Israeli soldiers Beni Avraham, Adi Avitan, and Omar Souad. Hezbollah gunmen dragged off their bodies and did not confirm until yesterday what Israeli officials had long ago deduced -- that the three were dead.
Nasrallah said late yesterday at a rally to welcome the prisoners that his group would abduct more Israelis if an agreement to free the remaining Lebanese inmate fell through. Turning to a poster that celebrated the Shebaa ambush, Nasrallah said: "This is a choice."
Earlier in the evening, the 21 men -- among them Lebanese militia leaders Mustafa Dirani and Abdel Karim Obeid -- received a red-carpet reception at the airport, greeted by Lebanon's top leaders and lawmakers and by family members they had not seen in years. Ali Balhas, a 32-year-old Hezbollah member, rushed off the plane to see his weeping father for the first time since being jailed by Israel 11 years ago. The two held each other in a long embrace. Balhas had been serving a 99-year sentence for taking part in a 1992 ambush that killed an Israeli soldier. His father, Hassan, told reporters at the airport: "I am proud he was in Hezbollah, but his jail term ruined my heart."
Other prisoners and their relatives praised Nasrallah for leveraging their release. "He is a hero, the hero of Lebanon, the hero of the whole Arab world," said Ibrahim Abu Zaied, who spent five years in an Israeli prison. And Palestinians freed to the West Bank and Gaza sounded a similar chord.
"Israel only understands the language of force," Sa'id Abed said as he came off a bus that transported prisoners from jail to their homes in the Hebron area. "I thank Hassan Nasrallah."
Abed, who teaches science in a secondary school, spent 22 months in jail without trial, a punishment Israel calls "administrative detention." He said Palestinian leaders took the wrong approach by trying to sway Sharon to free prisoners via negotiations.
But Sharon, speaking at a military ceremony for the three slain Israeli soldiers returned by Hezbollah late yesterday, warned Arabs not to draw the wrong conclusions from the deal.
"The State of Israel will not allow any enemy or terror organization to make kidnapping and ransom a regular practice," Sharon said. "There are means which we didn't use. But if, God forbid, the circumstances change, we won't hesitate to use them. That is a promise -- and it's best that no one puts us to the test."
Tannenbaum, the Israeli businessman who appeared to be in sound health after 40 months in captivity, might face legal trouble in Israel, officials said. Israeli journalists have reported that Tannenbaum was lured to Lebanon to complete a questionable business deal. He was taken for medical tests and will probably face questioning by police.
