Finally: hopeful family awaits Dirani’s release

It has been a long time since the Dirani family laughed out loud. But they now believe their world is about to come together again.
“It’s a done deal,” Hassan Dirani said with a wide grin.
He has no doubt that the three kidnapped “Israeli” soldiers will be exchanged for his cousin, Mustafa Dirani, one of 19 detainees held by “Israel”.
“Israeli” commandos kidnapped Dirani, the head of the Believer’s Resistance six-and-a-half years ago from his home in the Bekaa village of Qsar Naba.
The family has not heard from him since. They only saw him once, on television in July. He was in an “Israeli” court sitting next to Sheikh Abdel-Karim Obeid, a senior Hizbullah official who was kidnapped in 1989. Dirani, 49, looked thinner, his hair whiter. He touched his forehead with his finger and said: “We are always right and thank God.”
His family, who had not expected to see him, immediately developed the video image into photographs. Posters of the photographs, with the words: “We are always right and thank God” hang around the house. Over 200 posters were printed and banners are already being prepared to welcome the detainee home.
“There will be an exchange of prisoners, for certain,” said Dirani’s wife, Zeinab, 45. “Before we had no hope. But now we have a weapon in our hands. My husband will go free.”
Hizbullah, she said, has done what it promised.
“For six years, we protested, we pleaded and nobody would listen,” she said. “We held sit-ins and still nobody seemed to care or do anything. But now, there’s finally some attention. Hizbullah did promise us to free him.”
Six years ago, Hajj Abu Ali, as Dirani is known, was at home celebrating Eid al-Adha. Well-wishers finally left at midnight and the family retired to their beds. Only 2-year-old Sara was allowed to spend the night in her parents’ room while the rest of the five children went to their own beds.
At 2.30am, the couple were suddenly awoken by bright spotlights shining directly on them. Looking around, they found the room full of “Israeli” soldiers who then grabbed Zeinab, handcuffed her hands and legs and took her to another room.
“Where is Ron Arad?” they asked her, threatening to kill her 6-year-old daughter Tiba if she screamed.
Arad’s plane crashed in 1986 and the “Israeli” pilot was captured by the Believers’ Resistance.
Meanwhile, Dirani was pushed to the floor. He tried to get up twice before his captors dragged him away, warning that explosives had been planted around the house.
“I kept expecting the house to blow up,” said Zeinab.
Dirani was whisked away to “Israel” and never heard from.
“And then last March we heard that he had an “Israeli” lawyer who issued a report that the hajj was severely tortured,” said Zeinab. “But nobody could see him. The “Israelis” wouldn’t even let him have our letters. We didn’t know if he was all right.”
The Red Cross was also denied visitation rights.
Dirani was accused of being a danger to the “Israeli” people. The Jewish state said it would hold Dirani in order to exchange him for Arad.
“But when I heard of the kidnap of the three “Israeli” soldiers,” said Zeinab, “I just knew it was done to bring back the detainees.”
As for the “Israeli” soldiers’ families, “let them taste what we tasted,” she said. “My husband has been detained and tortured for six-and-a-half years, and nobody was allowed to see him. And now after 24 hours, the Red Cross is already negotiating for a prisoner exchange.”
Still, she added, “I can’t compare myself to the “Israelis”. Our faith doesn’t allow us to torture and treat people like they do. We’re above them.”
In the meantime, Dirani’s children continue to remember their father’s advice: “Education is like a weapon in our hands,” recalled Ali, Dirani’s 17-year-old son.
“I’ve applied all of the lessons my father taught me. Especially to be patient.”

The Daily Star, 10-10-2000.