The five prisoners who had been captured in the raid and taken to Israel were subjected to repeated interrogations about their relationship to Hezbollah and its leader. On August 16, they were finally allowed to see a lawyer who brought a petition to the Israeli Supreme Court to obtain their release. Instead of answering the petition the IDF released the five to UNIFIL, three weeks after being abducted. "We captured five people we thought were involved with Hezbollah," explained an Israeli official to New York Times. "Under questioning it turned out we were wrong. So we turned them over to the U.N." Haaretz wrote that "the release of the captives again raises questions about the real value of the operations of the special units". The IDF and the government had been quick to announce significant achievements immediately after the operations.