Hezbollah agrees to Israeli prisoner swap

7/2/2008 - 6:19:45 PM

Hezbollah will hand over two captured Israeli soldiers in exchange for five Lebanese prisoners in Israel, the militant group’s leader said today.

It was Hezbollah’s first confirmation of the prisoner swap, which was approved by Israel’s Cabinet on Sunday.

Sheik Hassan Nasrallah said the UN-brokered exchange would take place later this month.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said he believes the two soldiers, snatched in a July 2006 cross-border raid that sparked a war between Israel and Hezbollah, are dead. But Hezbollah has never confirmed that.

Speaking to a Beirut news conference today, Mr Nasrallah said he had not given Israel any indication of the soldiers’ fate. He called reports that they are dead “speculation... not based on anything tangible”.

All the Lebanese prisoners to be freed by Israel are alive, including the longest-held, Samir Kantar, who was serving multiple life terms for infiltrating northern Israel in 1979 and killing three Israelis – a man, his four-year-old daughter and a police officer.

Word of Kantar’s inclusion stirred emotions in Israel because of the nature of his crime – witnesses said he crushed the little girl’s skull. His release could set a new standard for how far Israel is willing to go to repatriate its soldiers.

Kantar denies crushing the girl’s skull, saying she was killed in the exchange of fire.

Mr Nasrallah also said he would provide a thorough report with information on missing Israeli airman Ron Arad, whose plane crashed in Lebanon in 1986.

His fate has been unknown, though Mr Nasrallah said he has reached “absolute conclusions” about what happened to Mr Arad after four years of investigations. He did not elaborate.

A United Nations-appointed German mediator will arrive in Lebanon within two days to receive a detailed report about Mr Arad, Mr Nasrallah said.

The bearded, bespectacled Shiite Muslim cleric called negotiations over the prisoner exchange “long, tough and complicated,” and described the results as a “new victory” for Lebanon.

The deal has been praised in Lebanon even by Hezbollah’s critics, including US and Western-backed Prime Minister Fuad Saniora, who described it as a “national success”.

Israel will also receive the remains of some of its soldiers killed in the Lebanon war, and has agreed to release dozens of bodies and an undisclosed number of Palestinian prisoners.