Israel Exhumes Lebanese Fighters ahead of Prisoner Swap

27/01/2004| IslamWeb

At a cemetery at a military base in northern Israel, soldiers have been digging up the bodies of 59 Lebanese fighters. It is the first step towards a prisoner swap with the Lebanese guerrilla group Hizbollah, due to take place on Thursday. Israel will hand over the bodies and also release 436 prisoners - 400 Palestinians, 35 from other Arab countries, and a German convicted of spying for Hizbollah. In Gaza City, women and children staged a demonstration on Monday in solidarity with Palestinian prisoners being held by Israel. According to Palestinian sources the detainees number 7,500. The German-mediated deal has been criticised by some Israeli politicians because it does not include Ron Arad, an Israeli airman shot down over Lebanon in 1986. Hizbollah, the Shi'ite group led by Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, will hand over Israeli reservist Colonel Elhanan Tennenbaum and the bodies of three Israeli soldiers. Nasrallah said yesterday that a second stage of negotiations would deal with Arad's fate and that of four Iranian diplomats kidnapped in Lebanon during the 1982 Israeli invasion. Israeli President Moshe Katsav has said he is willing to pay "any price" for the release of Arad. **PHOTO CAPTION*** Israeli soldiers exhume the bodies of Lebanese and Palestinian fighters, from a 'cemetery for enemy dead,' in the Amiad Army Camp in northern Israel January 26, 2004. (REUTERS/Haim Azulay)