The six Israel Defense Force soldiers who returned to Israel last Thursday from their imprisonment by the Al Fatah in Tripoli are basking in the warmth of the reception by their families, friends and the entire country.
But as they talked about what had happened to them during their 14 months of incarceration they also sought to catch up with developments in Israel during their absence. The six expressed bewilderment by the very great economic, political and social changes that had taken place in Israel.
Meanwhile, hundreds of the approximately 4,600 Palestinians and Lebanese detainees freed from the Ansar camp and Israeli prisons last week in the prisoner exchange streamed across the Awali River bridges over the weekend, on their way to homes north of the river. Some 120 Egged buses took them to their home towns in Lebanon. Israeli guards at the river expressed satisfaction that “potential trouble-makers” were leaving the area controlled by the IDF.
CONCERN ABOUT EFFECTS ON SECURITY
But army officers and some Israeli officials were expressing concern about the security effects by the release of the thousands of terrorists further embittered by their imprisonment. But it was also felt that not all the men and women who were released from the Ansar camp are likely to take up arms against Israel again. Many of them are expected to agree with the sentiments expressed in a “farewell letter” handed to all those who left the camp before going home.
After wishing each of them a “good life” and the hope that they would turn over a new leaf now that the time had come for “agreements instead of fighting,” the Israeli farewell letter ended with: “Good luck and, God willing, let us not meet again.” The Ansar detainees were quiet as they left and began their journeys home. But there is fear that some of them, along with about 70 hard-core terrorists freed from Israeli prisons, will inevitably find their way back into the ranks of active terrorist operations.
Among the hard-core terrorists are men and women who had been found guilty of participation in the hijacking of a Sabena aircraft more than 10 years ago, responsible for the murder of six yeshiva students in Hebron several years ago, booby-trapping Jerusalem markets which caused heavy loss of life, and murdering a taxi driver in Jerusalem and stuffing his booby-trapped body into the trunk of his vehicle.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
