TEL AVIV: Israel was exhuming the corpses of scores of Hizbollah fighters yesterday as it finalised a controversial prisoner exchange deal with the Lebanese resistance group that has split public opinion down the middle.
As the bodies of some 59 Lebanese nationals were being readied for return to their homeland, a special envoy, reserve Major General Ilan Biran, was due to travel to Germany to complete arrangements for the exchange brokered by Berlin.
Around 50 soldiers from the army’s rabbinical branch, using pickaxes in driving rain, disinterred the bodies from the Amiad cemetery in northern Israel, close to the town of Rosh Pina, journalists at the scene said.
They were then placed in wooden caskets before being hoisted onto army vehicles.
A total of 59 bodies are due to be handed over on Thursday at the Lebanese-Israeli border crossing of Rosh-Hanikra through a Red Cross intermediary.
Under the terms of the agreement announced over the weekend, Israel will release more than 400 Arab prisoners as well as return the exhumed bodies.
In exchange, Hizbollah will turn over Elhanan Tannenbaum, an Israeli kidnapped in Lebanon in October 2000, and the bodies of three soldiers, Adi Avitan, Benny Avraham and Omar Sawayed.
The deal has divided opinion amid continuing uncertainty over the fate of missing navigator Ron Arad, shot down over Lebanon in 1986.
In a secondary deal, Israel has agreed to turn over Samir Kantar, a Lebanese prisoner jailed for life over the murder of an Israeli father and daughter in 1979, in return for “concrete proof” about the fate of Arad.
Some 44 per cent of those questioned in a survey for the Maariv daily published yesterday said they were in favour of the exchange while exactly the same percentage were opposed to it.
Palestinian prime minister Ahmed Qorei gave his backing yesterday to the exchange deal. Most of the 400 Arab prisoners expected to be released are Palestinian.
Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said that Israel was also ready to free some Jordanian prisoners independently of the Hizbollah exchange.
Shalom, who is due to hold talks with Jordanian leaders in Amman tomorrow, said Israel attached great importance to its relations with its eastern neighbour.
In Amman, a foreign ministry source said Israel was set to free a new batch of Jordanian prisoners following talks between the two governments.
But the source added that those freed would not include four Jordanians serving life sentences in Israel for offences committed before the kingdom’s 1994 peace deal with the Jewish state.
Meanwhile a senior foreign ministry official confirmed that Israel was to submit to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) written arguments in defence of its controversial West Bank separation barrier at the end of the week.
“In accordance to the demands of the ICJ, were are going to present our written arguments at the end of the week,” ministry deputy director general Gideon Meir said.
A report yesterday in the English-language Jerusalem Post daily said the ICJ had rejected a call by Israel to postpone a January 30 deadline for written submissions ahead of hearings into the legality of the barrier on February 23.
The Hague-based court was called on to deliver its verdict by the United Nations General Assembly last month.
Although any ruling will be non-binding, it has the potential to embarrass the Israeli government.
Palestinians see the barrier as a land-grab and a bid to pre-empt the borders of their promised state, but Israel insists the barrier aims only to prevent infiltration by Palestinian resistance fighters.
n An Israeli court yesterday ordered Palestinian uprising leader Marwan Barghouthi held in isolation in prison for another six months.
The Beersheba District Court decision came in response to a petition by the Israel Prison Service which said isolation was necessary to limit Barghouthi’s ability to direct attacks from behind bars.
Barghouthi, 43, is on trial accused of orchestrating Palestinian attacks that killed 26 people. He has denied the charges against him and accuses Israel of mounting a political show trial. He faces life imprisonment if convicted.
Barghouthi has been held in isolation for the past year. Israel Radio said he is allowed visits only from his children.
He is considered a potential successor to President Yasser Arafat and his popularity among Palestinians has increased since his public trial began. – Agencies



photo:Israeli soldiers yesterday stand near the coffin of an Arab fighter which was exhumed in a “cemetery for enemy dead” in northern Israel and will be returned to Lebanon. – Reuters
Last update on: 27-1-2004