Jonathan Pollard, former spy in the United States on behalf of Israel.

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SPENCER PLATT / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / AFP

Imprisoned for thirty years in the United States for spying on behalf of the Hebrew state, the American Jonathan Pollard arrived in the middle of the night Wednesday in Israel, where he was received by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

"You are at home," Benjamin Netanyahu told the former spy and his wife Esther, handing them their Israeli identity cards.

Jonathan Pollard, a 66-year-old former US Navy analyst, served 30 years in prison for delivering classified US documents.

He was released in November 2015 with the obligation to wear an electronic bracelet and to respect a curfew and, above all, the ban on leaving the United States for five years despite Israeli pressure for him to leave.

The US Department of Justice finally lifted the conditions in November.

A video released Wednesday morning by the Israeli prime minister's office shows Jonathan Pollard and his wife descending the gangway of a plane towards Benjamin Netanyahu, who raises his hand in greeting.

National hero

One who is considered a hero in Israel explains that he and his wife are "delighted to be home at last after thirty-five years and we thank the people and the Prime Minister of Israel for bringing us home."

"We hope to become productive citizens as quickly as possible and to continue with our lives here," added the one who received Israeli citizenship in 1995.

Jonathan Pollard and his wife traveled aboard a private plane owned by US billionaire Sheldon Adelson that landed just before 3 a.m. local time at Tel Aviv's Ben-Gurion Airport, according to Israeli journalist Itay Blumental, specializing in Transportation by air.

Their arrival is experienced as a milestone in Israel, where President Reuven Rivlin welcomed them on Twitter and where the airport authority released the recording of their aircraft's landing request.

Sentenced in 1985

In the mid-1980s, Jonathan Pollard, an American Jew, made contact with an Israeli colonel in New York and began sharing US secrets with the Jewish state, in exchange for tens of thousands of dollars.

In total, he had disclosed thousands of American documents.

He was arrested in 1985 and sentenced two years later to life in prison after pleading guilty.

His case has long been a thorn in relations between Washington and Israel.

According to CIA documents declassified in 2012, Jonathan Pollard would have helped Israel in 1985 to bomb the headquarters of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) then exiled in Tunisia - an attack that left some 60 dead - and to assassinate PLO number two, Abou Jihad, in Tunis in 1988.

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  • Intelligence

  • Spying

  • United States

  • Israel

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