Nazi-hunter Urges Israel to Make Some Gesture to Facilitate the Release of Jews Held Hostage in Leba

Paris-based Nazi-hunter Serge Klarsfeld, on a 24-hour visit here, said today that Israel should make some gesture to facilitate the release of Jews held hostage by extremists in Lebanon. But he cautioned against giving in to blackmail demands of the kidnappers.

Klarsfeld’s wife, Beate, is now in Beirut engaged in efforts to obtain the release of the Lebanese Jewish hostages. Serge Klarsfeld reported here that Beate had recently informed him that she had made contact with the kidnappers and had offered herself as a substitute for the Jewish hostages.

He did not indicate the type of contact — direct or indirect — she had in Beirut, or the type of reply she received for her offer. She went to Moslem west Beirut on January 17 after two of the seven men originally kidnapped were found murdered.

Last month, the body of Isaac Tarrah, a 53-year-old Beirut Jew, was found in the Lebanese capital. A group calling itself “The Organization of the Oppressed of the World” claimed responsibility for Tarrah’s murder. In late December, the body of Haim Cohen Halala was found in no-man’s-land between east and west Beirut. He was abducted from his west Beirut home on March 29, 1985.

Tarrah and Halala were two of the seven men originally kidnapped from the Lebanese capital. In addition to the five known to be in the hands of the kidnappers, leaders of Lebanon’s small Jewish community have said that three other community members are also missing and feared kidnapped. There are but a few hundred Jews living in Lebanon.

Serge Klarsfeld told Israel Radio today, “There are a number of Jews who are being held with a knife to their throats, and they will be killed as Jews. We are now exploring how it is possible to improve the situation of those hostages. So during my 24-hour stay in Israel, I shall be getting in touch with friends of ours in the government. I hope it will be enough to change the situation.”