The body of Isaac Tarrah, a 53-year-old Beirut Jew, was found in the Lebanese capital Wednesday. He was one of four Beirut Jews kidnapped last March and the second to be murdered by Shiite Moslem extremists calling themselves “The Organization of the Oppressed of the World.” The first victim was Haim Cohen Halala whose body was found in Beirut on December 25. (Related story, P.3.)
The Shiite group announced Wednesday that it “executed” Tarrah to avenge anti-Shiite acts by the Israel-backed South Lebanon Army (SLA), including the demolition of houses in Kounin village in south Lebanon. The SLA blew up the houses from which two of its soldiers were killed in an ambush last week that also wounded an Israel Defense Force liaison officer. The families occupying the houses were evicted and expelled from the village.
After Halala’s body was found in the no-man’s-land between east and west Beirut, the same Shiite group announced “the execution of Israeli spy Haim Cohen Halala in response to the massive shelling of south Lebanon in which several strugglers were killed.” Halala was abducted from his west Beirut home on March 29. Tarrah and two other local Jews were seized at the same time.
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.
