Israel frees Shi’ites

Press, 4 July 1985, Page 10

Israel frees Shi’ites

NZPA Reuter Tel Aviv Israel yesterday freed about 300 Lebanese prisoners whose release was demanded by the Shi’ite Muslim gunmen who hijacked the Trans World Airlines jet and held the American hostages in Beirut. The prisoners were among 735 Lebanese detainees, most of them Shi’ites, transferred in April to Atlit prison, in northern Israel. State radio said that the rest would be freed soon. The 300, wearing black and blue training suits, boarded buses to be be ferried to Israel’s self-pro-claimed security zone in south Lebanon, where their

release was to be supervised by the international Red Cross, Army radio said. The hijackers had demanded that Israel free the 735 detainees in exchange for the American hostages. Israel refused, saying that it would not consider bowing to terrorism unless asked to by the United States. The Prime Minister, Mr Shimon Peres, praised Washington’s handling of the hijacking. “It was a brilliant political operation. The United States was able to free the passengers without compromising on its position facing the danger of terror,” he told a businessmen’s convention.