The World - News from June 9, 1989
Israel has rejected a Syrian offer to exchange the body of an Israeli soldier for 21 Palestinian fighters held in Israeli jails, Israeli and Palestinian sources say. Defense Ministry officials would not comment on the report. The sources said Syria offered to return the body of Sgt. Samir Assad, one of six missing Israeli soldiers, in exchange for 21 guerrillas from the Palestine Liberation Organization’s mainstream Fatah faction who were captured when Israeli forces attacked their boat off the Lebanese coast last year. Israel had reported that only seven guerrillas survived, but the sources said 21 were captured alive. In 1985, Israel exchanged 1,150 Palestinian prisoners for three captive Israeli soldiers. But the lopsided swap was condemned in Israel, and there has been no such exchange since.
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