Freed Lebanese Prisoners Return Home From Israel

With cheers, music and showers of rice, hundreds of relatives and guerrilla supporters Wednesday welcomed 13 Lebanese who were freed by Israel after being held for years as “bargaining chips” for a missing Israeli airman.

The men, released reluctantly by the government of Israel on orders of the nation’s Supreme Court, were taken from a prison in central Israel and handed over to the army. Blindfolded and handcuffed, they were driven in a bus, its windows covered with newspaper, to an army base near the border.

The prisoners later boarded a Red Cross bus that drove across the Lebanese-Israeli frontier, through Israeli-occupied territory in southern Lebanon and past a Lebanese army checkpoint at Kfar Tibnit.

“It’s as if I was born again,” said Youssef Sourour, 31, one of those freed.

“I can’t believe it. I am in a dream,” said Hussein Dakouk, also 31.

Both men, who were 17 when they were captured, said they are ready to join the guerrilla forces to fight Israel again.

The former prisoners’ arrival capped a week of debate in the Jewish state over whether all means are permissible in efforts to recover its missing soldiers, or whether the line must be drawn at what human rights groups say amounts to hostage-taking.

The 13 freed men were taken prisoner in Lebanon beginning in 1986 during roundups of sympathizers of guerrilla groups. Israel has been in southern Lebanon for two decades, occupying a 9-mile-deep strip of land as a buffer zone against attacks on its northern towns.

It says it will end the occupation by July 7.

Israel’s Supreme Court ruled last week that the 13 prisoners cannot be held as bargaining chips, rejecting last-minute petitions and pleas by the family of Ron Arad, an air force navigator who was captured by Lebanese guerrillas after his plane was shot down in 1986. His whereabouts remain unknown. In addition to Arad, three Israeli soldiers remain missing after disappearing in Lebanon.