Israeli journalist Yusuf Samir, who had been missing since April 4 after entering the Palestinian Authority area of Bethlehem, turned up late Wednesday night at an Israeli army checkpoint near the West Bank city, reported Haaretz newspaper.
Samir, 63, is an Egyptian native who received political asylum in Israel in 1968.
The paper claims that Samir showed signs of having been “beaten” and was confused.
The circumstances of Samir's reemergence were not entirely clear.
He said he had been "kidnapped" and held by one of the Palestinian Authority security services and had succeeded in escaping.
"I knew that if I did not escape, I would die," the paper quoted him as saying.
Israel Radio reported that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had asked German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, who is on a visit to Israel, to raise the issue of Samir's fate with Palestinian President Yasser Arafat.
After arriving at the checkpoint, Samir told the soldiers who he was and he was taken to Jerusalem's Shaare Zedek Medical Center.
After fleeing from the Nasser regime in Egypt, Samir began working for Israel Radio, editing and presenting Arabic-language programs. He did not use his real name in his journalistic work until Sadat's historic visit to Jerusalem in 1977.
Since the early 1990s, Samir has lived on the border of the Gilo settlement and Beit Jala. His house formerly belonged to a Christian family from Beit Jala, but was included in the municipal borders of Jerusalem after the Six-Day War in 1967.
According to Palestinian sources, Samir was arrested as he was photographing houses near Rachel's Tomb that had been bombarded by Israeli tanks after a Palestinian sniper killed an Israeli soldier – Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
