Former Hezbollah hostage Elhanan Tannenbaum dies at 78
Army reserve colonel was duped into traveling to Dubai for supposed drug deal in 2000, then abducted to Lebanon; was freed in 204 in exchange for hundreds of security prisoners
Israeli businessman Elhanan Tannenbaum, who was taken hostage by Hezbollah in 2000 and released four years later in a swap, died at age 78.
Tannenbaum was captured by the terror group after being lured to Dubai in October 2000 for an ostensible drug deal. He was freed in exchange for some 400 prisoners held by Israel.
He was later investigated for his conduct, but eventually was not charged, under a plea bargain.
Tannenbaum was to be buried Tuesday in Herzliya. He is survived by two children and two grandchildren.
Tannenbaum was born in 1946 in Poland and his family immigrated in 1949 to Israel, where he grew up in the city of Holon.
He served in the Israeli army, fighting in the Six Day War and the Yom Kippur War, in an artillery unit. Later, as an officer in the reserves, he reached the rank of colonel.
Repeated business and financial failures left him in debt. Via connections with an Arab Israeli crime family that had ties to Lebanon, he was persuaded to participate in an attempt to smuggle drugs into Israel, for which he would be paid up to $200,000.
He traveled to Brazil, where he was given a forged passport that he used to reach Dubai. From there, he was abducted to Lebanon and on October 16, 2000, Hezbollah announced that the terror group was holding an Israeli colonel. The announcement came nine days after Hezbollah had abducted three Israeli soldiers, during an ambush on the Lebanese border with Israel.
A Germany-mediated deal saw Tannenbaum and the bodies of the three soldiers returned to Israel in 2004.
On arrival in Israel, Tannenbaum was investigated by police, the Shin Bet, and the army. Under a plea bargain in which he revealed the reason why he had left the country in the first place, he was released from arrest without being charged.
In 2007, a military demoted him to the rank of private.
Tannenbaum remained in financial trouble and in 2018 was sentenced to several months in prison.
His death came 10 days after Israel assassinated Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah with an airstrike on his Beirut bunker. It was Nasrallah who, in 2000, made the announcement that the Iran-backed terror group was holding Tannenbaum.