IDF Military Intelligence Special Operations, orchestrated, initiated, and in collaboration with Unit 504, planned the abduction of Sheikh Abd al-Karim Obeid as leverage for future prisoner exchanges, specifically to gain information about Ron Arad. A Chief of Staff Reconnaissance force abducted him from his home in Jibchit, south Lebanon. In January 2004, he was released along with 400 Palestinian terrorists and 27 foreign operatives, most of whom were Lebanese, in exchange for Colonel (Res.) Elhanan Tannenbaum and the bodies of three soldiers who had been abducted on Mount Dov in 2000.