Advertisement
On September 4, 1982, during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, the Bahmdoun abduction operation was a military operation carried out by Fatah, the main constituent organization of the PLO. A Palestinian 4-man squad infiltrated the IDF-held mountainous area near north Bhamdoun, in central Lebanon and attack and IDF observation point, capturing the entire 8- men IDF soldiers from the newly formed Nahal Brigade unit. Four of the IDF soldiers were on active duty, while the remaining four were resting or sleeping. They were all captured without firing a single bullet, according to Wikipedia.
This provided the Palestinian side with plenty of leverage in two POW exchanges with Israel which free about 7000 Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners held at Ansar prison camp. A four-man squad of Fatah fighter from the elite Al-Jarmaq battalion, led by commander Eisa Hajjo, were selected for the mission. They were dress in uniform similar to those worn by Israeli-allied Lebanese Forces fighter and also carried the same ty of gun (East German AK-47s).
The attack took place on the afternoon of 4 September 1982, after a period of observation of IDF routines. The Fatah commander Hajjo walked alone straight into the Israeli position, speaking French and shaking hands with Sgt. Reuven Cohen, the Israeli office. Then suddenly he pointed his gun at the Israeli officer, forcing him to surrender. Meanwhile, the other member of Fatah unit sneaked up behind the remaining soldiers. The other Israeli soldiers walked unwittingly into the trap and realizing only to late the seriousness of their situation. Sgt. Cohen ordered his men to lay down their arms, and one by one they complied.
The four-man Fatah squad apparently had not expected such a success and had not prepared evacuation vehicles for so many prisoners. The Israeli prisoners were stripped of all their ammunition but were allowed to keep their personal weapons, so the company would appear from a distance, to be a joint IDF Lebanese Forces patrol. They had to march for several hours through the thick vegetation, undetected by all sides, across the ceasefire line.
The Fatah fighters were also nervous of losing their prisoners to the Syrian army. At that point, the Fatah squad contacted a PFLP-GC position nearby for help with logistics. The pro-Syrian PFLP-GC were considered to have more freedom of movement in the Syrian-held part of easter Lebanon. The PFLP-GC obliged and transported the Fatah men and their prisoners out of harm's way.
According to the deal PFLP-GC could keep two of the eight prisoners for themselves. In the Biqaa valley the six remaining Fatah prisoners were handed over to the Al-Jarmaq battalion commander Mahmoud al-Aloul, who is presently the Vice -President of the Palestinian authority.
Fatah quickly announce its four demands:
* The release of all the prisoners in the prisons in Lebanon (Ansa, Nabatiyeh, Sidon, and Tyr).
* The release of 100 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli prisons.
* Return of the confiscated archives of the Palestine Research Center.
* The release of passengers and crew of the two ships Cordela and Hanan seized by Israel.
Six prisoners from the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) were exchanged for 4,700 detainees from the Ansar camp and 65 prisoners from inside Israeli prisons. The other two IOF soldiers who were given to the PFLP-GC for facilitating the movement of the captive IDF soldiers were exchanged for 1,150 prisoners from Israeli prisons, including Kozo Okamoto, commander of the Japanese Red Army group that attacked the Israeli Lod Airport, killing 26 Israelis and wounding 79 before being wounded and captured.
The secret negotiation was conducted by Austria. At first Israeli rejected Fatah demands but in November 1993, an agreement was reached, where Israel agreed to most of the Palestinian demands. PLO veteran Shafiq al-Hout described in his memoirs the two agreements as the " largest prisoner exchange in the history of the Arab Israeli conflict and " a day of national celebration in Lebanon that "smiles returned for the first time since June 1982."
In contrast, many Israelis felt humiliated by the behavior of the eight Nahal brigade soldiers, all surrendering without firing a single bullet. The behavior of the eight captive soldiers was rebuked by many Israeli commentators. It was deemed "unacceptable by the ID Chief of Staff. Nahal Brigade commander went as far as branding the soldiers of his own brigade "eight cowards. One Likud Knesset member called for the soldiers to be court martialed.
Currently, Israel is holding over 10,000 political prisoners in jails. The prisoners include members of the legislature, children, and women; they also include over 430 administrative detainees. These are prisoners held without charge or trial for renewable periods of 6 months, who are often then re-arrested after being released.
Not only is administrative detention void of due process, but it is also profoundly cruel; these prisoners know that upon their eventual release, they can be (and often are) picked up at any moment in the future on the whim of Israeli security officials.
The Ansar prison camps run by the IOF give us a glimpse into the history and brutality of such incarceration. The original Ansar camp was established by the invading Israeli army in south Lebanon in 1982 and was infamous for its vicious treatment of prisoners. Several foreign doctors, including Canadian Chris Giannou, were rounded up during mass sweeps in south Lebanon in 1982 and later gave eyewitness testimony at meetings and official hearings. This is a small excerpt of Dr. Giannou’s account:
"All the males were paraded in front of three parked jeeps. In each one was a man with a hood over his head and an Israeli seated beside him. As we walked by, certain people would be singled out and walked away, and ‘X’ or something in Hebrew written on their backs. And, thus, 5,000 or 6,000 people were arrested on simple denunciation by a hooded man," according to Palestine Chronical article of April 14, 2020.
Salah Ta'amari was the prisoners' leader at Ansar prisoner camp. He was appointed by the prisoners to be their spokesman.
A Palestinian from Bethlehem left in 1965 to study in Cairo. When Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza Strip during the Six-Day War of 1967, his family - mother and nine siblings - fled across the river to Jordan.
The Ta'amari home in Bethlehem remains sealed by Israeli authorities. Mr. Tamari himself has lived in perpetual exile - in Jordan, Lebanon, and then in the US.
Ta'amari wrote in his memoir, "Bulldozers were finishing off what the bombers had started - levelling what was left of Bourj al-Shemali, Rashidiyeh, Ain El-Hilweh, and Miyeh wa-Miyeh refugee camps. The Palestinian population and a large portion of the Lebanese population were fragmented. Many were killed or wounded. Some fled to the north. Others were detained in numerous detention camps.
The rest of the population - mainly women, children, and old men - remained in the south, facing overwhelming physical danger, uncertainty, and worry. Women were forced to support their families by becoming servants, agricultural laborers, or casual helpers. Elementary school-aged children were also forced by family necessity to seek out work.
Those children who could go to school were unable to do so because a large number of their teachers (including Moeen Chabayta and Ahmad Shannaa) were detained at Ansar concentration camp. So was my uncle Mohammad Nimer El-Yousseph, all of my cousins, school classmates and my friend Jamal Hamad.
UNRWA, whose function has been to assist the Palestinian refugees, was almost paralyzed. Many of its employees were detained in Ansar and many of its facilities were destroyed during the blanket bombing of the South. The Palestinian population in the south faced a bleak future, living under constant demoralization, directly and indirectly caused by the Israeli-Phalangist alliance."
According to my brother Samih who was also held at Ansar for 18 months. Salah Ta'amari was the last prisoner to leave the camp, even though his wife managed to get her ex-husband King Hussein of Jordan to intercede for his early release from prison, but Tamari politely rejected the good will gesture.
My younger brother Samih El-Yousseph was abducted by the IOF in Ain El-Hilweh camp. In later July 1982, my cousin Hasan Abdulghani called me from Houston, Texas to inform that my brother Samih was abducted by the IOF while he was trying to escape to safety with his German wife and their 5-year-old daughter. Samih has been living in then West Berlin since 1974 and had left with his family to visit our mother and the rest of our relatives in Ain-Hilweh shortly before the Israeli invasion.
I immediately started lobbying to secure his release by contacting US, West German, and Israeli officials and writing about his story in the local newspapers, especially the Columbus Dispatch and the Columbus Free Press. The CFP covered the story quite frequently.
Ansar prison camp was characterized by overcrowding, deplorable facilities, unsanitary conditions and the use of torture and brutality against prisoners. Unlike the eight prisoners held by Palestinian, who were according to Jerusalem newspaper, living in luxury, in a house in East Lebanon and enjoying watching TV, listening to the radio, and reading books and magazines. They could shower when they wish and receive mail and gifts from families. They have never been beaten or mistreated.
Samih and other fellow prisoners did not enjoy these privileges. Infact, after his released, my brother talked about how he has to go through mock execution after he was blindfold and forced at gunpoint's to go down into a ditch with other prisoners. They were forced to crawl on their hand and knees, make sounds like animals and cuss Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat. This is pure evil act by the IDF.
Then on June 9, 1983, the Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) adopted the case of Samih and Mahmoud Shababo (another prisoner from Ain El-Hilweh was married to an American woman in Oklahoma, and Ghassan Zaidan, who is a Lebanese citizen and brother of US citizen Richard Zeidan.
In May of 1983, I hired an Israeli lawyer, Leas Tsemel, whom I met at Ohio State University in 1979. Tsemel wrote to me on May 28, 1983, that Samih is being held because he took part in criminal activity in Germany, adding that Samih denied this but added that Israel has "secret information."
One year exactly after my brother Samih's abduction, international human rights lawyer Richard Arens, the elder brother of Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Arens, whom I met in ADC office during a press conference that was attended by representative of 15 news organizations. It was a big boost to Samih's case and gave me a hope that there is a light at the end of tunnel. And the good part is that Professor Arens defended Samih's case for free.
Here is the first thing Professor Arens had to say about Samih's case, "Israeli policy in Lebanon is a gross violation of the 1949 of Geneva Conventions relative to the treatment of civilians in occupied territories and clearly Israeli troops are engaged in a coercive occupation of a significant segment of Lebanon."
He further added, "The Israelis say that he is being held on suspicion of terrorist activities allegedly perpetrated in West Germany. I have been in touch with the embassy of West Germany, and they know of no such terroristic activities, nor they are seeking his extradition. But assuming," said Arens," that Samih El-Yousseph had been guilty of violation German laws, the notion that Israel can act as an international policeman disposing German law is both in violation of German and Lebanese sovereignty and of international laws."
In December 1982 while in captivity, his German wife Petra, who refused to leave Lebanon without her husband, gave birth to their second daughter. Upon Samih's request, the new edition to the family was named Salam.
Back to the daring operation that helped free my brother Samih and 7,000 more Palestinians, other Arabs, and a Japanese brother on Thanksgiving Day (November 24, 1983). I got a phone call from my Congressman John Kasich, who later became the governor of Ohio, to congratulate me. He was one of many who called for Samih's release.
Upon further research about the daring operation and un-forgetful date of June 10 that helped free so many prisoners in one day. I found out that this specific operation was planned in advance by Guevara Al-Mowed, a former youth camp commander from Ain-El-Hilwehi camp along with other officers whom I was unable to confirm their identities. Sadly, Commander Guevara was martyred in Lebanon during the savage bombardment of Lebanon by US battleship New Jersey. Guevara's older brother Abdulaziz was my school classmate who was martyred in Jordan by an Israeli attack in 1969.
Sadly, my brother Samih also passed away in Berlin in 1995 at age 41, He never got to walk any of his two daughters down the aisle or get to meet his five grandchildren. I learned recently that Mahmoud Shababu also passed away. I never met Mahmoud, but I knew his father. I will always remember the name Eisa Hajjo and his 3 other brothers-in-arms, because they risked their own lives to save the lives of many thousands who were locked inside Israeli concentration camps. This date should be entered into the Guinness Book of Records as the most daring operation ever.
Mahmoud El-Yousseph is a Palestinian freelancer for Islamicity.com and the Columbus Free Press.org: He could be reached at elyousseph6@yahoo.com