OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, 24 September 2003 — Israel is to release about 400 Palestinian and Arab detainees next week as part of a long-awaited prisoner exchange deal with the Lebanese Hezbollah resistance group, Palestinian newspapers reported yesterday.
Citing an “informed Palestinian source”, Al-Quds daily said the German-mediated exchange would “probably” take place after the end of Jewish New Year festivities this weekend. Around 185 Lebanese, Syrian and Jordanian prisoners would be released as part of the deal while the rest would be Palestinian, the report said.
“All the Palestinian factions have presented (to Hezbollah) lists with names of prisoners they want to be released,” the source added.
Marwan Barghouti, the head of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement in the West Bank, and senior Hamas official Sheikh Hassan Yussef, are among the names on the list. But Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz said yesterday during a visit to the Erez crossing between Israel and the Gaza Strip: “We have no intention of releasing Barghouti.”
Interior Security Minister Tzachi Hanegbi had earlier said that Barghouti, who is on trial but has yet to be convicted “will stay in prison for dozens of years.”
The Ramallah-based Al-Ayyam newspaper, however, said it was “nearly certain” that Barghouti and Yussef would be among those released. Barghouti, 44, who is seen by many as the inspiration behind the Palestinian uprising that broke out in 2000, was arrested in April 2002 and brought before an Israeli court for the first time last September.
Israel accuses him of murdering 26 Israelis and “heading a terror organization” but his appearances in the Tel Aviv district court have so far focused on legal technicalities. Al-Ayyam, citing Arab and Palestinian sources, said the exchange would take place “in the coming days”.
Issa Qaraqa, who heads a Bethlehem-based prisoners club, told AFP that Israel has pledged during negotiations not to re-arrest freed Palestinians over the same charges and not to expel them from the occupied territories. Expectation of a deal, meanwhile, rose sharply.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said Monday there was “great hope” of a deal “soon”, while Israel’s Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said last week he believed Hezbollah was “serious” about reaching a new agreement on prisoners.
Israeli sources said that reserve Gen. Ilan Biran was due to hold talks in Germany yesterday with special mediator Ernst Urlau about the terms of a deal. On Aug. 25, Israel allowed repatriation of the bodies of two Hezbollah fighters, in a surprise move that appeared to signal a breakthrough.
The deal was the first tangible progress of the German efforts to negotiate a deal since previous successful mediations in 1996 and 1998 led to a series of swaps. In October 2000, Hezbollah captured three Israeli soldiers - whom Israel believes are dead - in a disputed border area. They also seized businessman Elhanan Tannenbaum, a reserve colonel who the guerrilla group alleges was an intelligence agent.
For its part, Israel is said to be holding 16 Lebanese, including two senior Islamic figures, though Lebanese media on Monday published a list of 19. Hezbollah, backed by Lebanon’s powerful neighbor, Syria, and Iran, was instrumental in the guerrilla war that led to the May 2000 Israeli troop pullout from southern Lebanon after 22 years of occupation.
