Captives Freed by Israel Vow to Keep Fighting

More than 750 Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners were released from the Israeli detention camp here today and vowed to continue their struggle against Israel.

“War until victory! Khomeini! Khomeini!” some shouted from the Israeli army trucks that drove them out of the Ansar camp, established on a south Lebanon hilltop a month after Israel’s June, 1982, invasion.

Israel dismantled the Ansar detention camp and moved about 1,200 other prisoners to a new detention center in Israel on Tuesday. Defense officials indicated that their release depends on whether attacks against Israelis continue during and after the scheduled Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon. (Story on Page 5.)

The International Red Cross today protested the transfer as a violation of the Geneva Convention.

‘Forcible Transfers’

In a statement issued today in Geneva, the Red Cross said Article 49 of the convention on the treatment of prisoners prohibits “forcible transfers . . . from occupied territory to the territory of the occupying power or that of any other country.”

It said Article 76 stipulates that accused civilians “shall be detained in the occupied country and if convicted they shall serve their sentences therein.”

The Ansar camp’s commander, identified only as Col. Yossi in keeping with Israeli military regulations, put the number of prisoners released today at 752.

Michel Cagneaux, head of the Tel Aviv office of the Red Cross, which monitored the release, said about 250 of the prisoners were trucked to Tyre, Nabatiyeh and Rashaiya, which lie within Israel’s present occupation zone in south Lebanon.

Cagneaux said the rest were taken to Sharqiyeh, along Israel’s front line about four miles northeast of Ansar.

Victory Gestures

The hands of some of the men were bound. Others clapped and made V signs for victory as they waited in trucks.

Yossi said about 75% of the prisoners were Shia Muslims and the rest mostly Palestinians and Lebanese Sunni Muslims.

Shias, members of the predominant religious sect in southern Lebanon, have been blamed for the majority of recent attacks on the withdrawing Israeli soldiers.

Israeli radio said the freed prisoners were given letters saying that they had been granted a chance to live in peace but that they would be found and punished if they resumed “terrorist activities” against Israel.