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Lebanon amid diplomatic efforts to free prisoners

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October 9, 2000 

CHEBAA, Lebanon (AP) - Calm returned to the Lebanese-Israeli border on Sunday as diplomatic contacts got under way to arrange a swap of three Israeli soldiers in Hezbollah's hands for Lebanese prisoners held by Israel.

Prime Minister Salim Hoss on Sunday met with Henri Fournier, the Beirut delegate of the International Committee of the Red Cross which has played a role in prisoner swaps in the past. Fournier was scheduled to meet with Hezbollah officials later Sunday.

The diplomatic contacts began hours after Hezbollah guerrillas ambushed an Israeli patrol in the disputed Chebaa farms on Saturday and grabbed the three soldiers.

Hezbollah has said it took the Israelis in order to exchange them for Lebanese held in Israeli jails. There are 15 Lebanese in Israeli prisons, including two guerrilla leaders seized by Israeli commandos from their homes in Lebanon in 1989 and 1994.

Beirut newspapers reported Sunday that Egypt - a key Mideast mediator - and the United States - sponsor of peace talks between Israel and its Arab neighbors - were also taking part in the diplomatic efforts.

The abductions were preceded by the worst violence along the Israeli-Lebanese border since May, when Israel ended its 18-year occupation of south Lebanon, in which Israeli border guards shot and killed two Palestinians and wounded 14 other stone-throwers.

On Sunday, Israeli warplanes broke the sound barrier over the Lebanese capital Beirut early afternoon and flew over Sidon, provincial capital of the south. Lebanese army troops, placed on a state of alert since the abductions, opened fire from anti-aircraft guns at the jets over Sidon.

The situation in Lebanon and along the border was otherwise quiet.

A Lebanese army bulldozer on Sunday moved vehicles damaged when Israeli helicopters strafed the area Saturday night in search of the Israeli captives. The bulldozer also dumped dirt in a rocket crater that had cut a two-lane mountain road leading out of this village. U.N. peacekeepers stationed nearby helped clear the debris.

"We hope the situation will be resolved through negotiations," said 60-year-old Zahiya Qatri, a Chebaa resident. "We've had enough tragedies ... we didn't sleep all night, fearing an Israeli incursion."

Eliette Yehya, a 35-year-old Brazilian who came from Sao Paolo to live with her husband in the nearby village of Kfar Chouba, now has second thoughts after a terrifying night.

"I wish I had never come here," she said.

The Chebaa farmland lies between Chebaa and Kfar Chouba, hugging the western foothills of Mount Hermon. The fertile farms are uninhabited. Israel won them from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war when its forces swept through the adjacent Golan Heights.

Lebanon and Syria say the area is Lebanese but Israel says the territory has to be negotiated with the Golan Heights. The United Nations, which confirmed Israel's May withdrawal and delineated the border, says Chebaa is not included in Lebanon.

Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Party of God guerrilla group which successfully fought the Israeli occupation, considers Chebaa occupied Lebanese territory and therefore a legitimate target for operations.