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Clockwise from upper left: MIAs Zacharia Baumel, Zvi Feldman, Ron Arad, Yehuda Katz
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| By israelinsider staff September 18, 2004 |
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Israel is apparently willing to release the family-murderer Samir Kuntar, four Iranian diplomats, and many other Arab prisoners in exchange for "concrete and reliable" evidence about the fate of Israeli Air Force navigator Ron Arad, shot down in 1986 and several Israeli soldiers killed in a 1982 battle.
Israeli officials on Friday rejected a report published in an Omani newspaper which said that the second phase of the Israeli-Hizbullah prisoner exchange could be resumed within a few weeks as the result of new information about Arad.
The officials call the reports on progress in a possible second stage prisoner exchange "media spin" initiated by the Hizbullah terror group, Army Radio reported. Officials said Hizbullah is "playing psychological warfare again," due to the pressure its leader, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, is under to release Arab prisoners held in Israel, Channel 1 TV reported Friday evening. It is not clear what Israel would get in return.
According to a report in the Oman daily al-Watan, the prisoner exchange negotiations between Hizbullah and Israel have resumed and the Shiite terror group has provided new, concrete information about Arad's fate. The paper reported that Nasrallah passed to German mediator Ernst Urhlau the information about Arad along with a new list of prisoners -- including Israeli Arabs and Druze -- in a recent meeting in Beirut.
Al-Watan quoted "a source closely following the prisoner exchange" as saying that the evidence presented by Hizbullah is likely to prompt "within two to three weeks" the release of terrorist Samir Kuntar, who murdered three members of the Haran family and an Israeli policeman in an attack on the northern Israeli city of Nahariya in 1979. Qantar is the longest held Lebanese prisoner, serving a 542-year prison term for the murders.
"Sources proposed that the exchange will include missing Lebanese and four Iranian diplomats...in return for [information on] Arad and the remains of four Israeli soldiers killed in Lebanon in 1982," al-Watan reported.
Three Israelis who went missing in action in the June 1982 battle of Sultan Yakoub are Zacharia Baumel, Yehuda Katz and Zvi Feldman. In 1993, soon after the Oslo "peace process" began, PA Chairman Yasser Arafat gave Yitzhak Rabin half of Baumel's dog-tag. The tag was received broken down the center, which, by IDF convention, indicates the soldier was killed. The tag, however, could have been broken as a ploy by Baumel's captors or by the PLO.
Al-Watan reported that the German mediator "hurriedly returned to Israel via Cyprus" bearing "corroborated and credible" information about Arad, the Beirut source told the newspaper. But Israeli officials denied Urhlau has been in Israel in the past two weeks, Channel One reported.
On Rosh Hashanah eve, a senior Israeli military official told reporters that " the key to solving the Ron Arad enigma lies in the hands of the Iranians" but added: "I am not sure that the Iranians have taken the decision to move in a positive direction."
The official added that Israel's security establishment has "never been close to solving the Ron Arad case," but was doing its utmost to do so.
Hizbullah has repeatedly presented Israel with bone fragments the terror group claimed belong to Arad, but DNA tests has refuted the claims in all instances. It is unclear why Israel has reason to believe the "new and concrete" evidence is more credible.
Ron Arad went missing in Lebanon in 1986 when he bailed out of his jet on a mission over Beirut. Israel's military maintains that he was kidnapped by the Lebanese Shi'ite group Amal, and eventually handed over to Iran.
Urhlau suspended talks in July due to media leaks, saying that he would only resume his mediation if both sides would refrain from leaking information about the talks.
Nasrallah, in a speech delivered in Beirut in August, said that the German mediator has returned to Lebanon and resumed efforts to restart the talks. "I confirm on this occasion that negotiations are still going on with the German mediator... but there is a pledge by both sides not to speak in detail about what is going on so that we don't fall into complications," Nasrallah said in Beirut.
"I tell Palestinian prisoners and Samir Kuntar and all prisoners in Israeli jails you are and you will remain Hizbullah's cause in all fields until we reach the opportunity of relief and liberation," Nasrallah said then.
Following these claims, Israeli security officials dismissed his comments, saying they were part of his psychological warfare campaign. However, on September 6, Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz acknowledged that negotiations were underway on the second phase of the Israeli-Hizbullah prisoner swap, but would not elaborate.
Ron Arad's family have said that if the return of his remains required the release of Kuntar, they would opposed such a deal. It is not clear whether return of the remains of Arad are even "on the table," or whether it is only information that Israel is expected to receive.
The January 2004 deal saw the return of kidnapped Israeli businessman Elhanan Tennenbaum and the bodies of three Israel Defense Forces soldiers killed by Hizbullah on the northern border in October 2000. In exchange, Israel released hundreds of Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners as well as the bodies of dozens of Lebanese militants. Kuntar, however, was held back due to the gravity of his crimes.
In the deal, Israel also released Sheikh Abed Karim Obeid, a Hizbullah leader captured in Lebanon in 1989, and Mustafa Dirani, head of the Amal militia captured in 1994. Both were taken by Israel to be used as bargaining chips to obtain Arad's release.
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