BEIRUT — At the top of the list of prisoners Hezbollah says it wants in exchange for two captured Israeli soldiers is Samir Kuntar, the Lebanese prisoner believed to be the longest-held in Israel.
Family members in Beirut are hopeful that Israel will release Kuntar, who is serving multiple life sentences for murder and terrorism in Hadarim Prison for his role in a 1979 raid on a Jewish settlement that left four people dead, including a 4-year-old girl.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Friday August 11, 2006 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 0 inches; 28 words Type of Material: Correction
Prisoners in Israel: An Aug. 2 article in Section A about Arabs in Israeli custody identified Nahariya as a Jewish settlement. It is a town in northern Israel.
"I feel that it is finally time for him," said Bassam Kuntar, a Beirut newspaper editor who was an infant when his brother, then 16, went off on a mission inside Israel for the Palestine Liberation Front.
In 2004, Israel was widely reported to be willing to release Kuntar in exchange for information from Hezbollah about the fate of Israeli airman Ron Arad, who has been missing since his plane was downed over Lebanon in 1986.
One of Kuntar's three partners in the 1979 Nahariya raid, Ahmed Assad Abaras, was released from custody in an earlier prisoner swap.
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz, quoting government sources, reported that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and his government were prepared for a prisoner exchange as a step in the way out of the current crisis. However, the newspaper reported that the Olmert government would not make a deal for Kuntar, who was arrested 27 years ago.
While in jail, his brother says, Kuntar has learned English and Hebrew and earned a degree in sociology from the Open University of Israel in Tel Aviv. His senior thesis, written in Hebrew, was titled "The Contradiction of Democracy and Security in Israel."
The Kuntars are members of the minority population of Lebanese Druze, an offshoot of Shiism. They come from the Aley area of Mt. Lebanon overlooking Beirut, where Samir Kuntar was recruited by Palestinian refugees into a militant offshoot of the Palestine Liberation Organization.
The Palestine Liberation Front has been associated with several notorious operations, including the 1984 hijacking of the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro.
When the cruise ship hijackers listed their demands, Kuntar's release topped the list.
This week, Kuntar's family appealed to the families of Israeli soldiers Ehud Goldwasser, 31, and Eldad Regev, 26, to put pressure on the Israeli government for Samir Kuntar's release. The two soldiers were captured in the July 12 Hezbollah raid inside Israel that set off the current conflict.
