A former senior Palestinian Authority official, now jailed in PA’s Jericho prison, offered to assist father to discover the fate of the Israeli American soldiers who went missing in Israel’s invasion to Lebanon in 1982, Israeli newspaper Haaretz said in its online edition.
Zachary Baumel was one of three Israeli soldiers who disappeared during the battle at Sultan Yakoub in June 1982. The father, Yona, had a permission from the Israeli security service to meet with Fuad Shubaki in his jail in Jericho.
Baumel hopes that Shubaki would give advance his efforts to find out what happened to his son.
Shubaki is in PA prison for his involvement in the 2002 Karine A weapon’s affair.
Shubak served in the PA under the late Palestinian President Yasser Arafat who put him in jail to calm down an uproar that was created in the wake of finding that a PA official is involved in smuggling weapons to the PA area. The ship was seized and confiscated by Israeli forces.
Shubaki claims he has connections in Syria and Lebanon that he can use to get some information about Baumel. Haaretz said that Shubaki told Baumel that it was he who had relayed half of Zachary Baumel’s dog tags to Arafat, who later transferred it to Israel.
