TEL AVIV (Update 4) - Twenty-five Egyptians left a jail in southern Israel on Thursday and were being bused to the border with Egypt ahead of a swap for a US-Israeli citizen jailed in Cairo on suspicion of espionage. The June arrest in Egypt of US-born Ilan Grapel set off new fears in Israel that relations with the Egyptians would sour after the ouster of their longtime president, Hosni Mubarak, in February. The swap deal was expected to help ease the strains that have developed between the two countries since Mubarak's departure. Under swap deal reached earlier this week, Grapel is to board a plane in Cairo later Thursday and fly to Israel. His sister, Michal, told Israel's Army Radio that their mother, who lives in Queens, NY, had flown to the region to meet Grapel and would fly back with him to the US, where he is studying law, at an unspecified date. The Egyptian prisoners are to cross into Egypt through a land crossing with Israel. Israel says they are not militants and that most were involved in smuggling contraband and people into Israel. Grapel moved to Israel, where his grandparents live, as a young man. He did his compulsory military service in Israel during its 2006 war in Lebanon and was wounded in the fighting. He later returned to the US to study.
