Israel Sentences 3 as PLO Infiltrators

An Israeli military court sentenced three Syrian members of the Palestine Liberation Organization to 19-year prison terms in a failed attempt to infiltrate Israel to attack a kibbutz, an Israel Defense Forces spokesman said Friday.

He saids the men were Syrian army deserters who had joined Yasser Arafat’s Fatah, the main wing of the PLO. Syria has backed breakaway groups opposed to Arafat’s leadership of the PLO.

The spokesman said Bassem Ahmed Salim Bater, Radwan Ahmed Jassan and Hasin Ahmed Hussani crossed into Israel from Lebanon last March and planned to attack a kibbutz near the border.

“When the three men saw Israeli soldiers in the area, they became afraid and fled back across the border to (a house in) the Lebanese village of Mis el Jabel,” the spokesman said.

“There, the three took Lebanese hostages as the IDF surrounded the house,” he said. “When the Israeli soldiers began shooting in the direction of the house, the Syrians gave themselves up.”