With an intricately-planned prisoner swap set to go forward early
Wednesday, Israeli President President Shimon Peres pardoned a
Lebanese prisoner serving multiple life sentences in Israeli prison
for a bloody 1979 terrorist attack.
The move late Tuesday removed the last barrier to a prisoner
exchange deal with Lebanon's Hezbollah that is to take place at the
Rosh Ha'Nikra/Naquora border crossing, the Israeli online news agency
ynet reported. The Israeli cabinet gave its final approval to the
deal earlier Tuesday.
The exchange was set for 9 am (0600 GMT), although local Lebanese
television reported Israel had asked for a delay until 0800 GMT.
Peres emphasized that the pardon does not mean that the brutal
deeds of the prisoner, Samir Kuntar, convicted of killing five
Israelis, were forgiven or forgotten.
Peres met with relatives of Kuntar's victims before issuing the
pardon.
Kuntar, the longest-held Arab in Israeli prison, led a Palestinian
terrorist commando in 1979 that killed two Israeli police offices,
two little girls and their father.
He crushed the skull of one of the girls with the butt of his
rifle. Her grandmother opposed the swap to the very last.
In the exchange, worked out through UN mediation, Kuntar and four
Hezbollah prisoners are to be swapped for two Israeli soldiers - Ehud
Goldwasser and Eldad Rev - captured on July 12, 2006, by Hezbollah
militants in a cross-border raid that triggered a month-long, deadly
and destructive war that failed to secure their release.
The two are widely believed to be dead, although Israel will only
have final confirmation when the actual transfer takes place.
Under the agreement, Israel is also to hand over the bodies of 199
'enemy combatants,' exhumed already last week from an anonymous
cemetery in the north of the country.
Only after the two soldiers are identified will Israel transfer
five Lebanese prisoners - Palestine Liberation Front (PLF) militant
Kuntar and four Hezbollah fighters captured in the 2006 war.
An Israeli military statement said the border crossing would be
declared a 'closed military zone' as of Tuesday night, ahead of the
swap, to be carried out under the auspices of the Red Cross.
The deal is controversial in Israel. Israelis fear that his
release means giving up a last chance to obtain conclusive
information on the fate of missing Israel Air Force navigator Ron
Arad, whose plane was shot down over Lebanon in 1986 and who
disappeared without a trace.
Israel had thus far refused to pardon Kuntar and include him in
past prisoners exchanges, seeing him as a key bargaining chip in the
case of Arad.
But under a compromise brokered by UN-appointed German mediator
Gerhard Conrad, Israel agreed to receive a detailed report submitted
by Hezbollah and detailing the radical Shiite movement's failed
efforts to find out what had happened to Arad.
According to sources in the German capital Berlin on Tuesday, a
German secret agent also contributed to the negotiations that led to
the swap.
The facilitator, a staffer with the BND, the German foreign
intelligence agency, flew a total of 700,000 kilometres shuttling
between UN headquarters in New York, Tel Aviv, Beirut and
various European capitals, the sources said.
It was not clear if the agent was one and the same as Conrad.
In Lebanon, preparations were under way for reception of the
prisoners, with Prime Minister Fouad Seniora declaring a national
holiday, a symbolic ceremony at the border crossing, then transfer
via presidential helicopter to Beirut International Airport for a
formal welcome.
A huge celebration is planned in Beirut's southern suburbs, a
hotbed of Hezbollah, where the group's leader Sheikh Hassan
Nasarallah is to deliver a speech at 1800 GMT.
Kuntar's hometown, Abey, was decorated Tuesday night with his
pictures, candles and signs calling him the 'conscience of Lebanon,
Palestine and the Arab nation.'
The house of Kuntar in Abey, a Druze village south-east of Beirut,
was also decorated with pictures and his mother, Siham, was seen
putting white flowers all around her house.
'I want to greet him with flowers when he arrives to his home
after 30 years,' Siham told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.
DaoudJul 15th, 2008 - 22:36:18
Samir Kuntar smashed the head of a 4-yr-old Jewish girl on a rock after forcing her to view the murder of her father by a bullet to the head at point-blank range. Kuntar is a brave, great hero of the jihad against 4-yr-olds! Thousands admire his bravery, and he is a perfect example for other Muslim fighters to follow! Baby-smashing Kuntar is indeed the conscience of the Muslim world!
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