Detainees get rapturous welcome

Ranwa Yehia 
Daily Star staff 

The spontaneous release of 145 detainees by their families from the Khiam detention center
has prevented Israel from using them as bargaining chips for the Shebaa Farms. 
Hizbullah Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah gave the detainees a festive welcoming
on Wednesday at dawn at the party’s Shura Council headquarters in Haret Hreik. 
He said that Israel had intended to negotiate the release of the detainees in return for the
Lebanese government agreeing to relinquish its sovereignty over the Shebaa Farms. 
"But our brave families, who faced the danger and charged into the detention center to
release their relatives, means Israel no longer has this possibility," Nasrallah said. 
Addressing all the detainees, including three women, Nasrallah said the Lebanese did not, in
the end, need the blessing of either Israel or the United Nations to secure their release.
"Their freedom was not granted to us by anyone," he stressed. 
Mocking the cowardly escape of South Lebanon Army militiamen, Nasrallah said the SLA fled at
the first sight of Hizbullah flags. "I want you to look at what we have accomplished. While
our people celebrate in their village squares and we celebrate here in the open air the
release of our detainees, 300,000 Israelis in settlements are sleeping in shelters," he said
 his voice drowned out be the deafening cheers of supporters. 
Although the detainees, who were freed on Tuesday and later taken to Beirut’s southern
suburbs for the grand welcoming, looked frail, they enthusiastically joined the crowd’s
jubilant mood. 
Cosette Ibrahim, the Lebanese University journalism graduate who had been detained in Khiam
for nine months, said she was still  stunned by how she and her fellow detainees were
released. 
"It was the most spectacular thing. At first we just couldn’t believe our ears when we heard
people saying that they were going to set us free. I swear, the sound of the locks being
broken is still ringing in my ears," Ibrahim said. 
She said she believed the SLA captured her for political reasons. "I was always open
and outspoken about my nationalist views and I think this irritated the militiamen," she
said. Although she denied being sexually abused, Ibrahim said the physical and mental
torture she underwent were beyond imagination. Asked to elaborate, she stared blankly,
saying only that she wanted to see her parents. 

DS 25/05/00