2000 Hezbollah cross-border raid

File:3soldiers.jpg

Omar Sawaid, Beni Avraham, and Adi Avitan

Shebaa Farms, the location of the cross border raid.

The soldiers' coffin's are returned to Israel (hebrew: Binyamin Avraham

File:Tannenbaum.jpg

Elchanan Tannenbaum, returned safely to Israel, as a result of the negotiations.

On October 7, 2000, three Israeli soldiers were abducted by Hezbollah while patrolling the Israeli side of the Israeli-Lebanese border. The soldiers were killed either during the attack or in its immediate aftermath. Their bodies were returned to Israel in a 2004 prisoner exchange.

The Abduction

While patrolling the Israel-Lebanon borderline near the Shebaa Farms at Har Dov, an IDF patrol manned by Adi Avitan (22), Staff Sgt. Benyamin Avraham (21), and Staff Sgt. Omar Sawaid (27), was ambushed by a Hezbollah squad who had disguised itself as UN personnel, using uniforms and vehicles carrying the UNIFIL insignia. Findings from the scene of the abduction indicate that the soldiers' vehicle was bombed, and that as a result of the explosion and the shootings, all or at least some of the soldiers were wounded.

Since their abduction, they were held incommunicado by Hezbollah in an unknown location. The captors denied the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and other parties permission to visit them and to learn at first hand about their state of health and the conditions they were held in.

Prisoner exchange

On November 9, 2003 Government of Israel announced that an arrangement had been concluded regarding the return of the three missing IDF soldiers - as well as abducted Israeli citizen Elchanan Tenenbaum, who had been captured by Hezbollah after being lured to Dubai for a drug deal.

Hezbollah instigated negotiations over the release of 14 Lebanese prisoners, together with a number of Palestinian prisoners. On 29 January, 2004, 30 Lebanese and Arab prisoners, 400 Palestinian prisoners, and the remains of 59 Lebanese militants and civilians were transferred to Hezbollah, along with maps showing Israeli mines in South Lebanon, in exchange for Tenenbaum and the remains of the three dead soldiers.

The bodies were positively identified and arrived during the evening hours in Israel. The soldiers were returned in an IAF aircraft along with an IDF delegation headed by Chief Military Rabbi, Brg. Gen. Israel Weiss. Upon the arrival of the coffins, a military ceremony took place in the presence of their families and commanders. The ceremony was attended by former President Moshe Katsav, former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, former Minister of Defense Shaul Mofaz, former Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin and former IDF Chief of Staff, Lt. Gen. Moshe Ya'alon.

Post abduction events

• Hezbollah continued to attack civilians and IDF patrols in the Shebaa Farms area in the leadup to the the 2006 Lebanon War.
• Hezbollah's desire for Israeli prisoners that could be exchanged with Israel led to Hezbollah's abduction of Israeli soldiers, which triggered the 2006 Lebanon War.
• On July 16, 2008, Hezbollah transferred the bodies of Israeli soldiers captured durin the 2006 Lebanon War, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, in exchange for the Lebanese convicted murderer and terrorist Samir Kuntar, four other Hezbollah militants captured by Israel during the 2006 Lebanon War (Khaled Zidan, Maher Kurani, Mohammed Sarur and Hussein Suleiman), and the bodies of 200 Lebanese and Palestinians.

See also

• Israeli MIA prisoner exchanges
• Israeli-Lebanese conflict
• 2000-2006 Shebaa Farms conflict
• United Nations Security Council Resolution 425
• United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon
• 2006 Lebanon War
• Israeli MIAs

External links

• "Address by PM Sharon upon the arrival of the bodies of the kidnapped soldiers - Jan 29- 2004". mfa.gov.il. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)