Lebanese Prisoners in Israel

Lebanese nationals have been held by Israel under several different frameworks rather than as one continuous prisoner population. These included wartime internment during the 1982 Lebanon War, administrative detention for security or leverage purposes, imprisonment following criminal or security convictions, detention under the Illegal Combatants Law, and captures during later fighting.[1][2]

The subject is closely connected to efforts to recover missing or abducted Israelis. Lebanese detainees figured prominently in the 2004 exchange for Elhanan Tannenbaum and three soldiers' remains and the 2008 exchange for the remains of Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev.[3][4]

During the 1982 Lebanon War, the IDF detained more than 9,000 people suspected of being PLO members or of aiding PLO actions against Israel.[1] The detainees came from 25 countries, with nationalities spanning a range from India to Morocco and from Niger to Pakistan, as well as some European nationals; the account does not specify how many were Lebanese citizens.[1] Around September 1, 1982, approximately 6,000 people were held at an IDF facility of about 20 acres near El-Ansar, 13 kilometers east of Tyre.[1] More than 3,000 had been released by November 1982, with those remaining interned at that site.[1]

Israel did not classify these detainees as prisoners of war under the Third Geneva Convention, treating them instead as civilians covered by the Fourth Geneva Convention on the protection of civilians in wartime.[1] On November 23, 1983, six Israeli soldiers held by Fatah were exchanged for 4,700 security detainees from the Ansar camp and 65 security prisoners held in Israel.[5]

Two cases came to define Israel's use of Lebanese detainees as leverage: Sheikh Abd al-Karim Obeid, a Hezbollah leader in southern Lebanon taken from his home in July 1989, and Mustafa Dirani, described as a security official for the Amal militia, seized from his home in Lebanon in 1994.[6][7] Both were held without charge in administrative detention. The government maintained that they posed security threats, while their detention was also connected to efforts to locate missing Israeli navigator Ron Arad.[6][8] Dirani was identified as someone who had held Arad for a period before transferring him to Hezbollah.[9]

By 1997, a Human Rights Watch report cited by CAMERA counted 52 Lebanese detainees in Israel.[10] The U.S. State Department's 1998 human-rights report on Israel said the country held 57 Lebanese citizens in addition to Obeid and Dirani; of those 57, 21 were held without charge or trial, and 11 had completed prison sentences of up to ten years but remained in custody without charge.[11] During 1998, 12 Lebanese detainees were released from Israeli prisons, 10 of them in exchange for the remains of an Israeli soldier.[11]

A separate State Department report described Al-Khiam prison in south Lebanon — a facility operated by the South Lebanon Army in an Israeli-controlled zone — as maintaining a separate detention system. It estimated that 120 Lebanese citizens and an unspecified number of Palestinians were held there and noted frequent allegations of torture and mistreatment.[12] This was distinct from detention in Israeli prisons. In 1998 the SLA released Suha Bichara, a Communist Party member who had attempted to kill SLA leader General Antoine Lahd about ten years earlier.[12]

A 1999 State Department report said the Israeli High Court of Justice had ruled in May 1998 that Obeid and Dirani could be held for a possible hostage exchange, prioritizing national-security considerations over their individual rights under Israeli and international law. Israel also denied the ICRC access to the two men.[8] At the end of 1999, Israel held 16 other Lebanese citizens, 11 of whom had completed sentences of up to ten years but remained detained without charge.[8]

On June 25, 1998, in a separate transaction, Israel received the remains of Shayetet 13 fighter Itamar Ilia, killed in the 1997 Shayetet disaster in Lebanon, in exchange for transferring 40 bodies to Lebanon and releasing 60 Lebanese detainees.[5]

Israel's detention policy faced sustained legal challenge. In April 2000, a nine-justice panel of the Supreme Court ruled 6–3 that eight Lebanese petitioners must be released, holding that administrative detention was not authorized when detainees posed no danger to state security.[9] Most of the court's reasoning remained classified.[9] A subsequent State Department report described the ruling as declaring illegal the detention of Lebanese prisoners as "bargaining chips" to obtain concessions or secure the release of Israelis held in Lebanon.[13] The government released 13 Lebanese detainees in April 2000, some of whom had been held without charge for as long as 14 years; they returned to Lebanon under International Committee of the Red Cross auspices.[14]

Seven of the 15 Lebanese detainees who remained in custody at the time of the ruling, including Obeid and Dirani, had not petitioned the court.[9] In July 2000, a Tel Aviv District Court allowed their administrative detention to continue, with Judge Uri Goren concluding that their release would endanger state security with near certainty and authorizing the defense minister to extend their detention by three months.[7] Their lawyer had sought prosecution rather than continued administrative detention; neither man had been tried for belonging to hostile groups or involvement in attacks on Israeli or SLA forces.[7]

In October 2000, Hezbollah abducted three Israeli soldiers — Adi Avitan, Benny Avraham, and Omar Sawayid — and demanded the release of the Lebanese detainees held in Israeli prisons.[5][13] An INSS study characterized Hezbollah's rationale as an "eye for an eye" principle: Hezbollah presented the abductions as a response to the continued detention of Lebanese prisoners and the absence of a mechanism for exchange, concluding that Israel would not release those it held unless Israelis were captured.[6]

Following the abductions, Israel suspended ICRC access to Obeid. Although the High Court ruled in 2001 that access must be restored, implementation was initially postponed.[13] A five-justice Supreme Court panel headed by President Aharon Barak ordered that Obeid and Dirani be allowed Red Cross visits, balancing security and humanitarian considerations under international law and Israel's Basic Laws.[15]

On March 4, 2002, the Knesset enacted the Imprisonment of Illegal Combatants Law, authorizing detention on the basis of suspected participation in hostile activity against Israel or membership in a force engaged in such activity and permitting indefinite detention without charge or trial.[2] The law was passed in response to the High Court's ruling against indefinite administrative detention as a bargaining-chip policy.[16] At the end of 2002, the State Department's Israel report counted Obeid, Dirani, and 27 other Lebanese prisoners, while its Lebanon report gave a total of 20 without explaining the discrepancy.[2][17]

By the end of 2003, regular ICRC visits to Obeid and Dirani had begun. Obeid, Dirani, and approximately 25 other Lebanese prisoners remained: three held administratively as illegal combatants, 19 on security grounds, and five on criminal grounds.[16]

Several smaller releases preceded the major 2004 exchange. On December 27, 1999, Israel freed five Lebanese fighters as a goodwill gesture before peace talks with Syria.[10] On January 13, 2000, Israel released 27 Lebanese prisoners, including 12 Hezbollah fighters, in exchange for two South Lebanon Army soldiers.[10]

After the April 2000 release of 13 detainees following the Supreme Court ruling, the State Department reported that 21 Lebanese citizens, including Obeid and Dirani, remained in custody at year's end.[14] A May 2000 New York Times report cited by CAMERA counted 15 Lebanese prisoners in addition to Obeid and Dirani and described the group as including prisoners convicted of attacks in the former Israeli-held zone in southern Lebanon.[10]

On January 29, 2004, Israel completed a major exchange with Hezbollah. Mustafa Dirani, Sheikh Obeid, and other prisoners were released; in return, Israel received civilian Elhanan Tannenbaum and the remains of soldiers Benny Avraham, Adi Avitan, and Omar Sawayid.[5][3] Lebanon also received approximately 60 bodies through the ICRC at the Rosh Hanikra crossing.[3]

The precise count of Lebanese prisoners released is reported differently across sources. A State Department Lebanon report described 21 Lebanese prisoners as returning on January 29.[18] The State Department's Israel report described Dirani, Obeid, and approximately 25 other Lebanese prisoners as having been released.[19] A Times of Israel retrospective put the Lebanese total at about 30.[20] The sources do not reconcile these categories or totals.

The exchange also included 400 Palestinian prisoners released to the Palestinian Authority, 29 prisoners from Arab countries, and a German citizen who had worked with Hezbollah. The non-Palestinian group was flown to Germany, with most then proceeding to Lebanon.[3] The exchange was controversial inside Israel: a Ma'ariv poll found 44 percent of respondents in favor and 43 percent opposed.[3]

A proposed second phase — an investigation by Hezbollah into the fate of Ron Arad and the release of additional Lebanese prisoners — had not occurred by the end of 2004.[18] The State Department's Israel report also said a Lebanese detainee was released in December 2003 after a year of administrative detention as an illegal combatant and that one Lebanese national remained in Israeli detention at the end of 2004.[19] By the end of 2005, three Lebanese nationals were detained in Israel, most on security charges.[21]

By 2006, nearly all the Lebanese prisoners from earlier periods had been released through the exchanges described above.[10] CAMERA identified three remaining detainees: Samir Kuntar, convicted in connection with a 1979 Palestinian Liberation Front terrorist raid in Nahariya in which members of the Haran family and a policeman were murdered; Yahia Skaff, accused of participating in the 1978 Coastal Road terrorist attack; and Nassim Nasir, a Lebanese-born Israeli citizen convicted of spying for Hezbollah.[10]

The 2006 conflict resulted in additional captures of Hezbollah operatives, although the cited account does not establish that a single identified group of Lebanese civilians was captured.[10] Hezbollah's abduction of soldiers Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev on July 12, 2006, in a cross-border raid triggered the Second Lebanon War and set the stage for the next major exchange.[20][4]

Indirect negotiations mediated by German official Gerhard Conrad ran from August 2006 until July 2008.[4] Hezbollah demanded the release of Lebanese prisoners including Kuntar, as well as hundreds of Palestinian and Arab prisoners. Israel agreed to release the Lebanese prisoners but refused to allow Hezbollah to help draw up the release list or obtain the broader Palestinian and Arab release it sought.[4] Israeli concerns included avoiding a wider political victory for Hezbollah and whether freeing prisoners for dead soldiers — whose fate Hezbollah had not disclosed — would incentivize future abductions.[4]

The Israeli government agreement outlined on June 29, 2008, provided that Samir Kuntar and four Lebanese fighters held by Israel would be released in exchange for Goldwasser and Regev. It also called for the transfer of the bodies of dozens of infiltrators and terrorists, including eight Hezbollah members, and for Israel to receive a report on Ron Arad's disappearance and remains from the Second Lebanon War.[22]

On July 16, 2008, the exchange was carried out. The five Lebanese prisoners left Hadarim Prison, were taken to an IDF base in northern Israel, and transferred through the Rosh Hanikra crossing. They were handed to the Red Cross at 5 p.m., with Kuntar at the head of the group.[23][24] Hezbollah revealed that Goldwasser and Regev had died only when their remains were returned.[4] Israel also transferred 199 bodies of terrorists, including eight Hezbollah dead.[4] Other accounts gave approximately 190 bodies or 200 Lebanese, Palestinian, and other Arab fighters' bodies.[25][26]

Kuntar had served 27 years in Israeli prison under a sentence described by INSS as multiple life sentences and by the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center as five life sentences plus 47 years.[4][23] Although he was not a Hezbollah member, Hezbollah had championed his cause and placed his name at the top of its exchange lists.[23] A Congressional Research Service report said Kuntar and the other prisoners were welcomed in southern Beirut by Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah, Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, and thousands of people.[27]

Hezbollah called the exchange a "Divine Victory," and the Lebanese government declared July 16 a national holiday.[28] Analysts offered competing assessments: some feared the exchange strengthened Hezbollah, while others argued that resolving the prisoner issue could weaken the justification for Hezbollah's armed wing.[27]

A separate transaction took place on June 1, 2008. Israel released Nissim Nasser, a Lebanese-born Israeli convicted of spying for Hezbollah, after Hezbollah transferred a coffin containing remains later identified as belonging to five IDF soldiers killed during the Second Lebanon War.[5]

The conflict that began on October 8, 2023, when Hezbollah opened a front in support of Hamas, generated a new category of Lebanese detainees in Israeli custody.[29] A September 2025 report attributed to the Lebanese Prisoners Authority through al-Sharq al-Awsat said that 19 Lebanese detainees were held in Israel: six Hezbollah operatives and 13 civilians.[30] Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam and President Joseph Aoun called for their release alongside other demands connected to the November 27, 2024 ceasefire.[30]

At a January 29, 2026 meeting with families of detainees, Hezbollah parliamentarian Hussein al-Hajj Hassan claimed Israel held 20 Lebanese prisoners from the post-October 2023 confrontation, plus three from earlier periods whose detention was not officially recognized by Israel.[31] He said ten of the 20 recent detainees had been captured during the war — nine on the battlefield and one in the al-Batroun area — and ten were detained in Lebanon after the November 27, 2024 ceasefire.[31] He also alleged that some were ill or wounded and had been denied Red Cross visits; the report presents these as attributed claims rather than independently verified facts.[31]

In March 2025, Israel agreed to release five Lebanese detainees as a goodwill gesture toward Lebanon's new president, Joseph Aoun, during talks in Naqoura involving Israeli, U.S., French, and Lebanese representatives.[32] The Israeli Prime Minister's Office said the decision was coordinated with the United States, and U.S. envoy Morgan Ortagus confirmed it.[33] Four detainees were transferred to Lebanese territory on March 11 and received by Red Cross ambulances for transport to hospitals in southern Lebanon. The fifth was transferred the following day and received by the Lebanese army.[34][35]

The Times of Israel, citing two U.S. officials, reported that one of the five released detainees was a Hezbollah member.[35] The same article attributed to the Hezbollah-affiliated newspaper Al-Akhbar a report that 14 Lebanese detainees remained in Israel, including seven whom Israel identified as Hezbollah members.[35] The prisoner issue was assigned to a joint working group alongside questions about the Blue Line, disputed border points, and the five locations where Israeli forces remained inside Lebanon.[33]

In September 2026, Israel released five Lebanese civilians who had been detained in areas of southern Lebanon under IDF control.[36][29] The Israeli Prime Minister's Office said interrogations had determined that they were not members of a terrorist organization and had not engaged in terrorism, leaving no reason to continue holding them.[29] The decision was also linked to negotiations with Beirut and efforts by both countries to locate and repatriate the remains of Lebanese Jewish community leaders abducted and murdered by terrorist organizations in the mid-1980s.[29] The ICRC facilitated the transfer, moving one person on the first day and four more on the second; Lebanese President Joseph Aoun thanked the United States.[37]

Arabic media identified one of the released individuals as Kamel Ghazi, approximately 20 years old, who had reportedly disappeared in October 2025 near Ayn Ata, north of Mount Hermon, after leaving for training nearby.[38] Another released detainee, Hussein Ayyash, 33, said he had been arrested in the southern Lebanese village of Tibnin about three months before his release.[39]

Ayyash said he was blindfolded and handcuffed, spent several days at different locations in southern Lebanon, and was then transferred to Israel. He described being held in solitary confinement, sometimes for up to 30 days, before being moved to a regular prison room.[39] He said he was not physically tortured but experienced severe psychological pressure while being questioned about Hezbollah connections.[39] His brother claimed that approximately 100 Lebanese prisoners remained in Israeli custody; the figure was not independently verified.[39]

The detention of Lebanese nationals influenced both Hezbollah's hostage-taking strategy and Israeli law. An INSS study described Hezbollah's 2000 abduction of Israeli soldiers as an attempt to force an exchange, while the Israeli High Court's ruling against detention solely as leverage was followed by enactment of the Illegal Combatants Law.[6][2]

The 2004 and 2008 exchanges demonstrated Israel's commitment to recovering citizens and soldiers, including their remains, but also generated debate over the price of such agreements. The 2004 exchange divided Israeli public opinion almost evenly, while the 2008 negotiations raised concerns that exchanging living prisoners for dead soldiers could encourage future abductions or reduce incentives to keep captives alive.[3][4]

Reported totals of Lebanese detainees have varied substantially across sources and time periods. The State Department's 1998 Israel report listed 57 Lebanese citizens in addition to Obeid and Dirani. Its 2002 Israel report gave a total of 29, while its Lebanon report gave 20 for the same year without explaining the discrepancy.[11][2][17] Counts for the January 2004 exchange range from 21 Lebanese in the State Department's Lebanon report to approximately 27 in its Israel report and about 30 in a Times of Israel retrospective.[18][19][20] CAMERA also cited a 1997 Human Rights Watch count of 52 and a May 2000 New York Times count of 15 in addition to Obeid and Dirani.[10]

The legal basis of detention shifted over time. Obeid was held from 1989 and Dirani from 1994 under administrative detention orders justified on security and leverage grounds. In May 1998, the Supreme Court allowed their detention to continue, prioritizing national security.[8] In April 2000, a differently constituted panel ruled that administrative detention was not authorized for detainees who posed no danger to state security, although those who had not petitioned the court — including Obeid and Dirani — remained in custody.[9] The 2002 Illegal Combatants Law then provided a new legislative basis for detention.[2] After Obeid and Dirani were released in 2004, the High Court declined to rule on their appeal challenging the law because they had already been repatriated.[21]

Sources use differing labels for Lebanese detainees, including "prisoners," "enemy combatants," "illegal combatants," "fighters," "terrorists," and "civilians." The distinction between detention in Israeli prisons and the separate Al-Khiam facility, operated by the SLA in an Israeli-controlled zone, is also important because the two systems operated under different authorities.[12]

Post-2023 figures carry similar uncertainty. The September 2025 total of 19 was attributed to the Lebanese Prisoners Authority; the January 2026 claim of 23 came from a Hezbollah parliamentarian; and the post-September 2026 estimate of approximately 100 came from a released detainee's brother. None was presented as an independently verified Israeli or Red Cross count.[30][31][39]