Region | Palestinian Territories
Timeline: Israeli prisoner swaps
Israel has carried out a number of prisoner swaps in the past. Here are details of some of those exchanges.
- Agencies
- Published: 23:39 July 15, 2008
- Image Credit: AP
- A man rolls a picture of Lebanese prisoner Samir Kantar, held in an Israel jail for nearly 30-years, at a printing shop in the southern port city of Tyre, Lebanon.
Israel has agreed to free Samir Kantar along with prisoners and the bodies of Hezbollah fighters, in exchange for the bodies of two Israeli soldiers.
Israel has carried out a number of prisoner swaps in the past. Here are details of some of those exchanges:
November 1983: Israel swaps 4,600 Palestinian and Lebanese captives for six Israeli soldiers abducted on September 4, 1982, from their forward post in Lebanon.
1985: Three Israeli soldiers captured in Lebanon in 1982 are traded for 1,150 Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners.
1986: An Israeli warplane is shot down in south Lebanon, and navigator Ron Arad is captured by Shiite fighters. He is presumed dead.
1989: Israel abducts Hezbollah official Shaikh Abdul Karim Obaid, hoping to trade him for information about Arad.
September 1991: Israel trades 51 prisoners for proof one of its soldiers held in Lebanon is dead.
1994: Israeli troops abduct Lebanese fighter leader Mustafa Dirani, hoping to use him to get information about Arad.
1996: Israel releases 65 Lebanese prisoners for the bodies of two soldiers captured in fighting in Lebanon.
October 2000: Hezbollah captures three Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid, later disclosed to be dead. In a separate incident, the group arrests an Israeli businessman Elhanan Tannenbaum, a retired army colonel.
January 2004: Israel and Hezbollah exchange Tannenbaum and the bodies of three Israeli soldiers for 436 Lebanese and Arab prisoners, including Obaid and Dirani, and the bodies of 59 Lebanese fighters.
2006: On July 12, Hezbollah captures two Israeli soldiers in cross-border raid, sparking 34-day war that kills 159 Israelis and more than 1,000 Lebanese, most of them civilians. War ends with a UN-brokered cease-fire.
2008: Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert declares the two captive soldiers dead, Cabinet approves a deal to exchange Kantar, 4 Hezbollah fighters and the bodies of 200 Arab fighters killed in the past 30 years in return of the two soldiers, the Israeli soldiers captured in 2006 and information on Arad.
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