Who are the 12 Lebanese Jews at the heart of Netanyahu’s detainee deal?

Report by Lara El Hachem, English adaptation by Karine Keuchkerian
 
The release of five Lebanese detainees in exchange for a search for the remains of Jews in Lebanon was how Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu summed up the situation, sending messages in several directions: to Lebanon and the United States, saying he had taken a step in exchange for a step, and to the Israeli public, saying he had not abandoned the remains of members of the Jewish community.

More importantly, Netanyahu spoke of field operations carried out by Israel and Lebanon as part of efforts to locate the remains.

In Lebanon, there has been no official confirmation of this point. According to sources, the Jewish community in Lebanon has not received any official request from the Lebanese state to search its cemeteries. Other sources, however, say the Lebanese army carried out two searches for remains, but according to Lebanese sources, the searches have so far failed to locate them.

The remains-for-detainees issue began with the framework agreement in Washington and entered into effect in Rome, where the Israeli delegation presented maps, plans, aerial photographs and information on possible locations of the remains.

Who are those Netanyahu referred to as the heads of the Jewish community in Lebanon?

They are 12 people, according to a file prepared by Gal Hirsch, who was appointed by Netanyahu to handle the issue and took part in the latest Rome negotiations.

So far, there is no verified information about their names. However, after reviewing the archives of international newspapers and Jewish organizations and cross-referencing them with a list Netanyahu submitted to the United Nations in 1986, when he was Israel’s ambassador there, the information points to nine Lebanese Jews who disappeared in Lebanon during the 1980s.

According to the list submitted by Netanyahu, four of them were among those killed, while five others were abducted.

However, later reports published by Jewish organizations said that most of them had been killed. But who killed them?

According to The Washington Post, a group calling itself the “Organization of the Oppressed in the World” claimed responsibility for the operations at the time, citing various reasons.

Some were accused of collaborating with Israel, while others were allegedly killed or abducted in retaliation for Israeli military operations in southern Lebanon and to pressure Israel to release Lebanese detainees held at the Khiam detention center.

The group is believed to have been a precursor to what later became Hezbollah.

So far, there is no evidence that these individuals were collaborators.

What is certain, however, is that they were Lebanese members of a community that remains documented in Lebanon’s records, and that their families were the ones who requested that their remains be found.

Netanyahu responded to that request and used it in his election campaign.