Convicted US spy Pollard arrives in Israel

Jonathan Pollard, a former US Navy analyst who served 30 years in prison for spying for Israel, arrived in the country early on Wednesday after parole restrictions on his travel expired.

Pollard had long voiced a desire to emigrate to Israel, which granted him citizenship. The espionage affair strained US-Israel relations for decades.

Pollard was jailed for giving away classified US documents, and had been confined by parole terms to the US since his release in 2015, despite Israeli pressure to allow him to leave.

The US Justice Department removed the terms and conditions last month.

Several leading Israeli dailies, including Haaretz and The Jerusalem Post, reported that Pollard had landed in Israel with his wife Esther earlier on Wednesday.

The Israel Hayom newspaper's report included a photo of Pollard and Esther on a plane, wearing masks.

In a statement last month, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomed the lifting of the US parole restrictions and voiced hope that Pollard would "arrive in Israel soon."

Israel has imposed its third nationwide lockdown to contain the novel coronavirus and current restrictions compel anyone entering the country to spend at least 10 days in quarantine in a government-selected hotel.

There was no immediate indication as to whether Pollard and his wife had been exempted from those restrictions.

Pollard was a US Navy intelligence analyst in the mid-1980s when he made contact with an Israeli colonel in New York and began sending US secrets to Israel in exchange for tens of thousands of dollars.

Pollard passed thousands of crucial US documents to Israel, straining relations between the two close allies.

Israel's October 1985 raid on the Palestinian Liberation Organization's Tunis headquarters that killed around 60 people was planned with information from Pollard. He was arrested in 1985 and was sentenced to life in prison two years later, despite pleading guilty in a deal his attorneys expected would result in a more lenient sentence.

After his release in 2015, he was kept in the United States by parole rules and not allowed to travel to Israel where his wife, whom he married after he was jailed, lived.

Israel, where Pollard is regarded as a hero and which awarded him citizenship in 1995, reportedly pressured Washington for his release.

(with inputs from agencies)