Israeli Affairs

Failure in the prisoner exchange deal between Syria and Israel

One of the prisoners' insistence on returning to the Golan is the reason for the failure of the deal.

Jerusalem24 – According to news reports in Israel, Thursday, that a prisoner exchange deal with Syria, mediated by Russia, has failed, after it was close to success, due to a condition related to one of the Syrian captives.

Israeli media indicated that the National Security Adviser, Meir Bin Shabat, traveled for the third time to Moscow, to arrange the necessary matters to complete the prisoner exchange deal.

However, the efforts, according to the Israeli media, have reached a dead end due to the refusal of a Syrian prisoner to be deported to Syria, clinging to return to his village in the occupied Syrian Golan.

The story began, on Wednesday noon, after the Palestinian Prisoners Club stated that the Israeli Prisons Administration had informed the Syrian prisoner, Dhiab Qahmuz, from the village of Ghajar in the occupied Syrian Golan, that he would be released.

Israel had arrested Kahmuz since 2016, and he was sentenced to 14 years in prison.However, the dilemma that the negotiations were trying to overcome was either to transfer him to Syria or to his village in the Golan Heights, and Qahmuz was determined to return to his village.

Later, the official Syrian news agency “SANA” confirmed that there were negotiations for the release of Qumhuze and another prisoner, Nihal Al-Maqt, in exchange for the release of an Israeli girl who crossed the border with Syria and reached Quneitra, where the Syrian forces arrested her.

While Qamhuiz lives behind his clutches, al-Maqt is subjected to heavy house arrest.

In April 2019, Damascus and Tel Aviv conducted a prisoner exchange deal with Russian mediation.

According to it, the body of the Israeli soldier, Zacharia Baumel, who was lost in the battle of “Sultan Jacob” in 1982 during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, was delivered in exchange for the release of Syrian prisoners.

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