Atlit

Atlit prison in Israel has now been cleared of the last of the more than 1,100 Arab captives from Lebanon who had been held there since spring. The freed prisoners, including both Lebanese and Palestinians of military age, had been relocated from a prison camp in southern Lebanon as the Israeli army concluded its three bitter and costly years of occupation. That cross-border transfer, as U.S. and Israeli legal experts both noted, violated international law on the treatment of prisoners.

The last group of 119 Lebanese and Palestinian detainees held by Israel were freed today and got a heroes' welcome when they rode into Lebanon's southern port of Tyre. The men were among more than 700 Arabs held in Israel's Atlit prison near Haifa whose release was demanded by Shia Muslim gunmen who hijacked a TWA jet June 14 and held 39 Americans hostage. Israeli military sources said most of those released today were members of the radical Shia Muslim Hezbollah sect.

Israel's "inner Cabinet" of 10 senior government ministers Monday approved the release within 48 hours of about 300 of the 735 Lebanese prisoners whose freedom was demanded by the hijackers of TWA Flight 847, Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin confirmed. However, Rabin and other government sources denied any linkage between the decision and Sunday's release of the TWA hostages.

Rescuers found the bodies of two air force officers--including the grandson of the late Prime Minister Menachem Begin--whose F-16 fighter plunged into the Mediterranean during a training flight. Maj. Yonatan Begin, 30, was piloting the jet with navigator Lt. Lior Harari, 24, when it disappeared Monday from radar screens. The two bodies and fragments of the plane surfaced near the crash site, 17 miles off the northern coastal village of Atlit, Israel.

The final group of 119 Lebanese and Palestinian detainees held by Israel were freed Tuesday and received a heroes' welcome when they rode into Lebanon's southern port of Tyre. They were among the more than 700 prisoners whose freedom was demanded by Shia Muslim gunmen who hijacked a TWA jetliner in June and held 39 Americans hostage for 16 days.

Israel released 31 Lebanese prisoners from its military detention center at Atlit on Monday amid reports that rightist Cabinet members had argued against the move as premature and as possibly appearing to be a capitulation to terrorism.

The Rev. Benjamin Weir, the 61-year-old Presbyterian minister kidnaped near his apartment in Beirut 16 months ago, was freed by his captors last weekend, it was disclosed Wednesday, but his release was kept a tight secret because U.S. officials hoped that freedom was imminent for six other Americans held in Lebanon. The first word that Weir was safe in Norfolk, Va.

Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres said Tuesday that only two of the seven names relayed by the United States as possible Palestinian participants in preliminary Arab-American Mideast peace negotiations are acceptable to his government. Speaking at a closed session of the Israeli Parliament's Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee, Peres ruled out the other five proposed individuals because they are representatives of the Palestine Liberation Organization or its "constituent bodies."