One year on, no sign of Israeli-Lebanese prisoner swap

By Weedah Hamzah and Ofira Koopmans Jul 12, 2007, 11:31 GMT

Abey, Lebanon/Tel Aviv - A large photograph of Samir Kuntar, displayed in the middle of his family residence, greets everyone who enters his childhood home in the Mount Lebanon village of Abey.

'I am still waiting for him to come back and light this house with his smile and wisdom again,' said Kuntar's mother Siham, adding she is in tears when she sees her son's picture each morning.

Kuntar, who was sentenced to 534 years in prison in Israel, hails from this Druze village overlooking the capital Beirut.

Described by Hezbollah as the 'mayor of the Lebanese prisoners,' Kuntar was the man the Lebanese movement sought to have released when it launched its cross-border raid against Israel exactly one year ago.

The raid - in which Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers as bargaining chips - triggered an unexpected 33-day war between Israel and the Shiite militant movement that killed 1,200 Lebanese, most of them civilians, and 159 Israelis, and caused massive destruction.

Kuntar and three other fighters of the Palestine Liberation Front (PLF) rode a rubber boat from the southern Lebanese port city of Tyre to the northern Israeli coastal town of Nahariya on April 22, 1979. In an attack codenamed the 'Nasser Operation,' they wanted to protest the Israel-Egypt peace treaty signed one month earlier.

With guns and grenades, the group stormed a residential building near the beach and broke into one of its apartments, taking a father and his four-year-old daughter hostage and killing them back at the beach. According to witnesses, Kuntar shot the father in the back in front of his daughter, then smashed the girl's head against a rock. Two Israeli policemen and two of Kuntar's unit were also killed.

The mother of the family had accidentally smothered to death her other, two-year-old daughter as she was keeping her from crying out while hiding in an overhead boiler space as the attackers were searching for them in their apartment.

One year after last summer's war, the two Israeli soldiers are still in the hands of Hezbollah, with no word if they are alive or dead. Kuntar, who was not yet 17 at the time of his attack, is still jailed in Israel, as are at least two other Lebanese.

'We know there are obstacles in the secret negotiations, but we are hopeful that his turn will come and he will regain his freedom,' said Bassam Kuntar, a journalist who was an infant when his brother embarked on his attack.

'They want him to apologize for what he did. If so, Israel has to apologize for all the people of Lebanon and Palestine and for the massacres they committed in the past few years,' said Bassam.

'We are a family against violence, but oppression and injustice cause violence and prompt people to act accordingly,' he added.

'My brother is not a cold-blooded murderer like he was described by the Israeli media. He is a freedom fighter.'

Back in Israel, Smadar Haran disagrees. It was she who lost her family at the hands of Kuntar.

'To turn a murderer of children and helpless civilians ... into a hero and a symbol,' she said, 'if that is heroism, everyone should judge for himself.'

Now 55, remarried and the mother of two other daughters, Haran said 'getting over it' is not the appropriate term to describe how she copes. She learned 'to live with what happened by creating a new family,' she said from her Nahariya home.

But despite her personal ordeal, she would not express opposition to a prisoners swap that would include Kuntar. 'I would very much like to see our soldiers return home,' she said.

In contrast to the case of Israeli Corporal Gilad Shalit held by Hamas in Gaza, Israel has been highly secretive about whether it is holding behind-the-scene negotiations with Hezbollah about such a prisoners exchange, reportedly through a German mediator.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has openly admitted he is holding Egyptian-led indirect negotiations with Hamas. Details of these negotiations have been regularly leaked to the media, but on the front of the hostages in Lebanon there has been complete silence. And it is unclear what is blocking a breakthrough.

Israeli spokesmen refused to give details on the issue, with one government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, saying only that the mediation was under the auspices of the United Nations but that Hezbollah was asking for a 'ridiculous price' just for a sign of life of the two soldiers, Ehud Goldwasser, 31, and Eldad Regev, 27.

Kuntar's family and the survivor of his attack each have their own opinion about what blocks a breakthrough.

Appealing to Goldwasser's and Regev's families, Kuntar's brother Bassam said: 'You should focus on lobbying inside Israel to move forward the blocked negotiations because Olmert is delaying the issue to hide his political failure.'

'We have great faith in Seyyed Hassan and we know he will fulfil his truthful promise to Samir and us very soon, despite all the obstacles,' Bassam nevertheless added, referring to Hezbollah chief Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah.

Haran for her part blamed Hezbollah. 'I think that Samir Kuntar is not really urgent for Hezbollah. Samir Kuntar is a tool in the hands of Hezbollah to keep the conflict open,' she said.

Meanwhile, the families of Regev and Goldwasser - on another tour of Europe this week - continue to campaign tirelessly for their sons' and husband's freedom. One year on, their biggest concern is that their case will disappear from the public eye.