The overall IDF commader in the West Bank Wednesday crowned as a success the midnight rescue of kidnapped cab driver Eliyahu Gurel by IDF commandos near the West Bank city of Ramallah, but questions remained as to the motives and background of the kidnappers.

Special forces located Gurel in an abandoned building in Bitouniyah, west of Ramallah. Soldiers from the crack Sayeret Matkal unit broke into the building, to find Gurel alone and bound, after his captors apparently fled. Not one shot was fired, and Gurel was taken to safety.

Gurel, 61, arrived back at his Tel Aviv home in the early hours of Wednesday morning to find a street party in progress, with neighbors toasting his safe return with champagne and vodka.

He had been missing since Friday night, when his taxi was found with its motor running in an Arab neighborhood of Jerusalem, and signs pointed to a kidnapping.

IDF Major-General Moshe Kaplinski said the complex operation had been a success, but investigators had yet to determine the terror organization, if any, to which the kidnappers belonged.

"At this stage, we don´t know of an organization, nor do we know of the affiliation of the kidnappers, except for the detail that in the past, one of them belonged to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. This is part of our investigation, and we will fill out the details, apparently in the coming days."

Asked how the kidnappers were armed, apart from a knife used to threaten the cab driver, he said, "We had reasonable grounds to assume that they had pistols. We have not as yet found their weapons, except for the ´cold arms´ (knives).

Kaplinsky declined to respond directly when asked about reports that the kidnappers had asked for a monetary ransom in addition to a prisoner release.

"A number of times during the negotiations, various demands were raised. We used these demands as part of our tactical activity, and there is no point in going into their substance."

He added, however, "I emphasize that there was a demand by the kidnappers to release prisoners."

Kaplinsky also turned aside questions over debates in the media over whether the kidnappers´ motive may have been criminal in nature. "I don´t discern an issue here. From our standpoint, this was a terrorist incident, without any connection to any criminal or other incident."

On Tuesday evening, fighters of the police counter-terror unit, together with the undercover Duvdevan unit, succeeded in arresting four people who had been involved in the kidnapping as well as a number of accomplices.

Deputy IDF Chief of Staff Major General Gabi Ashkenazi said all of Gurel´s kidnappers had been arrested. None of the soldiers were hurt in the action.

"I´ve gone through four very difficult days," Gurel said while in hospital in Jerusalem early Wednesday morning, undergoing examinations before being taken home. Yesterday I walked for three or four hours, and my knee was hurt. In recent days I slept on planks of wood in a basement or in a pit, seven meters under ground. I picked up the kidnappers outside the airport in Lod. They asked that I take them from Lod to Jerusalem."

The rescue was the first case in recent memory of a kidnapped Israeli being returned home safe and sound. In most cases since the 1976 Entebbe hostage crisis, kidnap victims have been killed in captivity, or during military raids aimed at rescuing them.

The turning point in the investigation came early Sunday morning, when the fiancee of one of the kidnappers was arrested near Lod, outside of Tel Aviv, Kaplinsky said. She apparently supplied investigators information on the identities of the kidnappers.

In subsequent telephone contacts with Israeli security forces, the kidnappers sounded confused, their precise motives unclear, police said.

Media reports said the kidnappers demanded an unspecified sum of money, as well as the release of 2,000 jailed Palestinians, including Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti, the assassins of slain cabinet minister Rehavam Ze´evi, and Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants.

Pressed for details of the demands, Kaplinsky said "During the negotiations, the demands of the kidnappers were presented: freeing hundreds of Palestinian prisoners jailed in Israel. A document found in the pocket of one of the kidnappers had the names of a number of senior prisoners involved in hostile terror activity."

Deputy Defense Minister Ze´ev Boim, saying that the four days of Gurel´s abduction were among the tensest that he and security forces could remember, stressed that Israel had not even considered agreeing to the demand for freeing prisoners.

"This is an iron principle of the state of Israel, which does not surrender to terrorism of this type, extortion by kidnapping, because each abduction like this would spur further abductions.

"It was very important here to clearly broadcast the message that we are not ´able to be blackmailed.´"

Gurel said of the kidnappers, "When we got to Jerusalem, they directed me to the French Hill junction in Beit Hanina. There they threatened me with a knife, and I didn´t put up a fight.

"The kidnappers were two men, and a women, and a 4-year-old girl was also there. They treated me very well, and spoke to me in Hebrew. I didn´t tell them that I understand Arabic and could understand what they were saying to each other. They were not drug addicts. He [one of the kidnappers] said that he would request the release of prisoners in exchange for my release. I understood that he had been a prisoner as well."

Speaking about the moment of his release, Gurel said, "I was very excited. I heard voices and noises when I was in the pit, seven meters under ground."

Gurel said that he tried to escape from the pit on Tuesday afternoon, but when he tried to remove the weights placed over the pit, the kidnappers noticed, and prevented his escape. Gurel also claimed that no one was watching him at the moment of the rescue.

According to sources involved in the operation, the kidnappers made contradictory demands in various phone calls, at times asking for money, at times demanding the release of all Palestinian prisoners, at other times they demanded the release of only some of the prisoners.

Gurel´s wife, Hanna, said early Wednesday morning that, "These days have been the hardest of my life. We didn´t sleep. We are tired and spent. Thank God my husband is alive, and I hope that he is safe and sound. We have outstanding police, army, and Shin Bet forces. They are the precious people who brought my husband back."

Liat, Gurel´s 34-year-old daughter, exited the family´s home in Ramat Gan late Tuesday and told reporters and others who had gathered at the scene, "I thank everyone, and am eager to see my father."

Gurel´s sister, Zvia Ben Ami told reporters, "Shortly after midnight, we were contacted by phone and informed of the successful rescue operation. I thank everyone, especially the security forces, who did an outstanding job. I thank everyone who prayed with us. Today we can finally stop crying." (© Copyright 2003 Haaretz. 07/16/03)