On Monday, Israel's parliament passed a bill to enable authorities to keep two Lebanese prisoners in jail, after a debate between right-wingers and Arab-Israeli deputies.
The two Lebanese Muslim leaders were both kidnapped by Israeli troops and are being held in exchange for news of a missing Israeli air force officer shot down over Lebanon in 1986.
Sheikh Abdel Karim Obeid has been detained since 1989, while Mustapha Dirani has been held since 1994.
Israeli air force flight navigator Ron Arad was captured by the pro-Syrian Shiite Amal movement when Dirani was its intelligence head.
Dirani's political organization, Faithful Amal, later split from Amal and is now close to the Lebanese Shiite movement Hizbullah, of which Obeid was a spiritual leader and operations officer in southern Lebanon.
The Israeli Parliament members passed the Imprisonment of Illegal Combatants Law by 38 votes to 19 votes, with two abstentions. The law says that members of groups hostile toward Israel who are not part of another country's army may be imprisoned by Israel. It does not give a time limit for the imprisonment, according to AFP.
The bill does not make specific reference to either of the Lebanese prisoners, but it was widely known to be aimed at keeping them in jail and was dubbed by the press the Obeid-Dirani bill.
The bill is also believed to be intended to allow Israel to imprison members of the Lebanon's Shiite Hizbullah group, which has frequently attacked Israel from the northern border.
During the debate Arab-Israeli deputy Issam Makhoul of the Hadash party labeled Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon "the head of terror," which sparked angry cries from right-wingers and appeals for calm. (Albawaba.com)
© 2002 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
