Elhanan Tannenbaum

Elhanan Tannenbaum, (Hebrew: אלחנן טננבוים‎‎, born 12 August 1946) was a reserve colonel in the Israel Defense Forces and businessman, who was kidnapped in 2000 and held for more than three years by the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

Elhanan Tannenbaum was born in Poland, the son of Holocaust survivors. Most of his relatives had been killed in the Holocaust. In 1949, Tannenbaum and his parents and sister immigrated to Israel and moved to Holon, where Tannenbaum grew up and attended high school. He was also active in the local scouts movement.

At the age of 18, Tannenbaum enrolled in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, studying economics and political science. He began his compulsory military service in the Israel Defense Forces during his academic studies, and served in the Artillery Corps between 1965 and 1968. After graduating, he completed his active military service as an officer. He then studied business administration at Tel Aviv University. After his discharge from active service, he served as a reservist officer in the IDF Artillery Corps. Tannenbaum saw action in the Six-Day War, the War of Attrition, and the Yom Kippur War. He eventually reached the rank of Colonel in the Artillery Corps reserves.

Tannenbaum married in 1971, and had a son, Ori, and a daughter, Keren. Tannenbaum later divorced his wife.

In 2000, Tannenbaum, who was in debt due to gambling and business failures, was approached by his childhood friend Kais Obeid, an Israeli-Arab, who was working for Hezbollah, and who had previously been tried by an IDF military court in the Gaza Strip for a planned operation to abduct an Israeli in Gaza and taking him to Lebanon by boat. Obeid, along with Lebanese Hezbollah operative Kaid Biro, was planning to abduct Tannenbaum in Dubai and take him to Lebanon for Hezbollah to use as a bargaining chip. Obeid offered Tannenbaum a part in an alleged lucrative drug-dealing operation. Tannenbaum was told he would have to fly to Dubai, and his role would be to consult Obeid on how to smuggle drugs into Israel.

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