Abdel Karim Obeid (الشيخ عبد الكريم عبيد) is a sheik and Imam of the village of Jibchit in south Lebanon, high-place of Lebanese Shiism.
Regarded as the spiritual leader and soldier of the 'Islamic Amal' (no relation with the similarly named secular Resistance movement Amal, except for both catered to the lebanese shia community) in the south of Tyre, close to Hizballah and related to the operations of capturing western hostages since 1982. He was captured on 28 July 1989 by an Israeli commando. Danny Abdalla, a Lebanese criminal living in Denmark, who also admitted to having killed Ragheb Harb on behalf of the Israelis, claimed to have participated in the kidnapping of Abdul Karim Obeyd.[1][2] As a result, Hizbollah put him on their death list, and he is wanted in Lebanon.[3] He was a long time held prisoner in Israel in the famous prison 1391, near the green line, and later transferred to the Ashmoret penitentiary, located near Kfar Yona, north of Tel Aviv.
In exchange of its release, Israel required information on the fate of the navigator Ron Arad (crashed in Southern Lebanon in Octoberr 1986) at first, and later on for the bodies of the three soldiers abducted by Hizballah in October 2000 at the Israeli-Lebanese border and for an Israeli business man captured at the same time elsewhere.
He was released in January 2004 with twenty other Lebanese prisoners, 400 Palestinian prisoners and a number of other nationals, as part of a deal to get the abducted soldiers and civilians back. He thanked Hizballah and Iranian leaders for acting for his release [4]