Hizbollah Welcomes Israel Decision on Prisoners

14/04/2001| IslamWeb

BEIRUT (Islamweb & News Agencies) - Lebanon's Hizbollah welcomed on Thursday Israel's decision to allow the Red Cross to visit two Lebanese Resistance men kidnapped as bargaining chips for missing Israeli servicemen.
But the Resistance group said the decision by the Israeli Supreme Court would have no bearing on negotiations over four Israelis that Hizbollah captured last October.
``Israel's Supreme Court decision should have been made a long time ago. This decision, although late, is good and making it now is better than delaying it any longer,'' a Hizbollah spokesman said in a statement.
Hizbollah was the driving force behind the Israeli troop withdrawal following a 22-year-long occupation of southern Lebanon.
Israel's Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that humanitarian principles outweighed demands by security officials that the visits should be conditioned on reciprocal visits to the Israelis held by Hizbollah.
Israeli commandos abducted Hizbollah's Sheikh Abdel Karim Obeid in 1989 and the Amal movement's Mustapha Dirani in 1994 to use them in negotiating the release of Ron Arad, an Israeli airman missing since 1986. (Read photo caption below)
Last October Hizbollah seized three Israeli occupation soldiers in the disputed border area of Shebaa Farms.
Later that month, Hizbollah announced it had captured an Israeli reservist colonel. Israel regards him as a civilian.
Hizbollah said then it was ready to swap the Israeli captives for Arab and Lebanese prisoners in Israeli jails.
Hizbollah has refused since then to provide any evidence of their condition or to let third-party representatives see them, such as the international Red Cross.
International mediation for a prisoner swap has failed.
Hizbollah,is still fighting Israeli troops in the occupied Shebaa Farms in southern Lebanon.
PHOTO CAPTION:
One of the men, Sheikh Abdel Karim Obeid(L), was abducted from Lebanon in 1989 and the other, Mustapha Dirani (R), has been held since 1994.They were both seized by the Israeli army inside Lebanon to be used as bargaining chips in exchange for information about an Israeli airman, Ron Arad, who was shot down over Lebanon in 1986.