Freed prisoners arrive in Beirut for heroes’ welcome

Officials, masses receive detainees after decades of imprisonment

February 2004

(Reuters) - Around 30 mainly Lebanese prisoners arrived in Beirut to a hero's welcome on Thursday as part of a landmark prisoner swap deal between Israel and Hizbollah guerrillas, witnesses said.

A senior Hizbollah official who was among those freed, Sheikh Abdul Karim Obeid, said he felt as if he had been born again following his release in a prisoner swap with Israel after more than 14 years in jail.

"My feeling can't be described...all of us feel great, as if we're born again... I can't express my feeling in words," Obeid told Hizbollah's al-Manar television by telephone from Germany shortly before takeoff.

A plane carrying the former detainees touched down at Beirut's airport, where Hizbollah chief Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah and two busloads full of family members waited for their arrival.

 Israel also freed 400 Palestinian prisoners in return for an Israeli businessman, who is also a reserve army officer, and the remains of three soldiers held by Hizbollah.

"This is a new victory for the resistance in Lebanon...which God willing will not be the only victory but will be followed by more victories and the liberation of all of the (occupied) land and detainees," another freed guerrilla leader, Mustapha al-Dirani, told Manar.

Under the German-mediated deal, three years in the making, the Arab prisoners swapped planes at an air base in Cologne with freed businessman Elhanan Tannenbaum and the wooden coffins bearing the soldiers who were abducted in 2000.

Thousands of people lined the main road to Beirut airport, waving yellow Hizbollah flags, to welcome the freed men.

Lebanon's top officials and family members are expected to give a heroes' welcome to the prisoners, some of whom spent 19 years in Israeli jails.

Hizbollah will also hold a rally in Beirut's southern suburb in celebration.

Obeid was abducted by Israeli commandos in 1989 to use as a bargaining chip to secure information for downed airman Ron Arad who was captured in south Lebanon in 1986 and has been missing since.

Dirani was snatched in 1994 from his home in similar fashion.

"My heart is beating so fast it feels like it is going to jump out of my chest," Dirani's son Mohammed said before the plane landed.

Sajed Obeid, who last saw his father Abdul Karim Obeid when he was seven years old, said he was in disbelief that his father was finally coming home.

"After 15 years we will finally live together," he said.