Israel began transferring 25 Egyptian detainees to the Sinai on Wednesday as Cairo freed a US-Israeli citizen accused of espionage, under the terms of a prisoner exchange deal. "The transfer across the border has started," said Sivan Weizman, spokeswoman for the Israeli prison service.
The 25 Egyptians were being transferred across the Taba border crossing and were to be welcomed at an official ceremony later on Thursday. There was initial confusion about how Grapel was being transferred to Israel. Egyptian state television said he would be flown from Taba to Tel Aviv, and Israeli officials said he would travel from Cairo.
But Israeli lawmaker Israel Hasson, speaking to Israeli public radio from Cairo, said he was with Grapel and another Israeli official, ready to fly to Tel Aviv. "I'm here with the lawyer Yitzhak Molho and Ilan Grapel, who is carrying a back pack, and we are about to get on the plane to return to Israel," he said.
"I hope that this affair will allow us to improve relations with Egypt," he added. Officials in Israel also confirmed that Grapel was to fly from Cairo to Tel Aviv. "Ilan Grapel is expected at Ben Gurion international airport, where his plane from Cairo will land early on Thursday evening," a senior Israeli official told AFP. Israeli media said Grapel would travel to Jerusalem for a brief visit with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu before flying home to his family in New York.
Grapel, 27, was arrested on June 12 and accused by Egypt's military rulers of being an agent of Israel's Mossad spy agency and of sowing sectarian strife during the uprising which ousted president Hosni Mubarak in February. Israel has strongly denied the charges, insisting the whole thing was a mistake and accusing Egyptian authorities of "bizarre behaviour."
Israel's security cabinet on Tuesday approved the deal to free the 25 Egyptians in exchange for Grapel. The names of the detainees were published on October 25, giving Israelis 48 hours to file any legal challenges. But there has been little domestic opposition to the release of the prisoners, who were all convicted of either illegally entering Israel or smuggling drugs or weapons.
The Israeli Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected an 11th-hour appeal saying the exchange was a political decision, which they had no authority to intervene in. The returning Egyptian prisoners, all of them Bedouin, were to be received at an official reception at a Taba hotel attended by the governors of North and South Sinai, as well as representatives of the Bedouin community in the area.
Egyptian television broadcast footage of the prisoners arriving in Sinai, some of them bending down to kiss the ground. Three minors among the detainees, two aged 15 and one aged 16, were the first to arrive, and were greeted by a welcome committee clutching flowers and Egyptian flags. The prisoner exchange comes shortly after Egypt mediated the release of Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier held in Gaza for more than five years, in return for the release of hundreds of Palestinian detainees.