WASHINGTON — For 10 months, the families of four Israelis kidnapped by Hezbollah have been waiting for their loved ones to return home.
Now the families have found a new source of hope, after U.S. lawmakers and Jewish groups indicated that the families’ crusade has not been forgotten and that a new effort will be launched to get the four back.
Sen. John McCain announced on Aug. 2 that he would take part in an international commission to get information about the four and secure their release.
“These families deserve to know,” said the Arizona Republican.
He added that he would work with Delaware’s Sen. Joseph Biden, a Democrat, on legislation calling for increased U.S. involvement in the effort to bring the four Israelis home.
McCain’s comment came a day before U.N. officials released a report indicating that the three Israeli soldiers who were kidnapped suffered serious, possibly even critical, injuries.
Many feel McCain’s prominence will speed along a solution and that the senator’s personal history will raise the issue’s profile. In 1967, McCain, a naval aviator, was shot down over Vietnam and held as a POW in Hanoi for 5-1/2years, much of it in solitary confinement.
“All of Israel appreciates his efforts,” Mark Regev, spokesman for the Israeli Embassy in Washington, said last week.
Last October, Hezbollah gunmen kidnapped three Israeli soldiers — Benny Avraham, Adi Avitan and Omar Souad — from a disputed border area known as Shabaa Farms.
Shortly after, Hezbollah kidnapped an Israeli businessman, Elhanan Tannenbaum, who also serves as a colonel in the Israeli reserves.
There has been no word from Hezbollah about the condition or fate of the prisoners despite repeated attempts by the families and the International Red Cross to gain information and access to the men.
Intensifying the uncertainty for the missing men’s families was the U.N. report indicating that three of the four victims may have suffered serious injuries when they were abducted across the Israeli-Lebanese border — and that some or all four may be dead.
The atmosphere at last week’s announcement on the Senate steps — attended by representatives of the World Jewish Congress, the American Jewish Committee and other groups — was disturbed somewhat by protesters who shouted and held placards with such anti-Israel slogans as: “Condemn Israel’s Aggression” and “Free Palestinian POWs in Israel.”
The families of the kidnapped four were there to thank those involved with the increased efforts, including Israeli Ambassador David Ivry and former U.S. Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger.
The family members were hopeful, but their words were mixed with pain.
Qassem Saoud said his son’s children, ages 3 and 5, cry for their father every day.
Tannenbaum’s son, Ori, said, “I am haunted by anxiety day and night.”
Avraham Burg, the speaker of the Israeli Knesset, said he wants to continue pressuring the United Nations and the Red Cross and drumming up international support.
“This is a process which addresses the conscience of the world,” he said.
U.N. officials later provided some information about the kidnapping of the three soldiers.
In an 18-page report released last Friday, the officials presented the findings of an internal U.N. investigation into the handling of a videotape shot at the scene hours after the soldiers were kidnapped.
The report included the assessment of a senior U.N. peacekeeper in Lebanon that the three soldiers may have died from their wounds.
It also indicated that there were two videotapes made by U.N. peacekeepers in Lebanon that may provide clues to the kidnapping.
Israeli military officers and diplomats on Wednesday viewed those videotapes and also inspected seven bloodstained items retrieved by U.N. peacekeepers from vehicles apparently used by Hezbollah in the kidnapping. The Israelis walked out of a meeting Tuesday after U.N. officials said they would only be able to view the videos once. But that obstacle was overcome when the two sides agreed that the Israelis would be able to have at least two viewings.
The report also acknowledged that U.N. officials had failed to keep Israel informed, but that this had resulted from “lapses in judgment and failures to communicate, not from conspiracies.”
The report left open questions regarding the role some U.N. peacekeepers may have played in the kidnapping.
Israeli officials later said they appreciated U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s willingness to launch an investigation. But they criticized the United Nations for taking so long to offer information about the soldiers’ possible condition.
Defense Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer said this week the Israeli defense establishment is working under the assumption that the soldiers are still alive.
“We have no information to say they are not alive,” Ben-Eliezer said in television interviews over the weekend.
For months, contacts have been held via third parties regarding an exchange of the Israeli abductees for Arab prisoners held by Israel.
Rallies and protests over the past several months have sought to increase awareness about the four kidnap victims.