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Israel signs prisoner swap deal with Hezbollah

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-07-08 10:31

JERUSALEM - Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office on Monday confirmed that Israel has signed a UN-mediated prisoner exchange deal with Lebanon's Shiite militant group Hezbollah.

Karnit Goldwasser, wife of captured Israeli soldier Ehud Goldwasser, speaks during a demonstration outside Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office in Jerusalem. [Agencies]

The prime minister's office said in a statement that Ofer Dekel, Israel's chief negotiator for securing the release of abducted soldiers, signed the deal with Hezbollah on Sunday after meeting in Europe with a German mediator charged by the UN with brokering the exchange, local daily Ha'aretz reported on its website.

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The office further stated that the signing of the deal was meant to trigger the execution of the swap.

"The continuation of the deal's implementation is conditioned on the existence of another few components," the office said, without explicitly stating what those components were.

The statement, however, said that Israel has still not received a final report on the fate of missing Israel Air Force navigator Ron Arad that Hezbollah has pledged to give within the framework of the swap negotiations.

In the exchange, Israel is expected to release five Lebanese prisoners and bodies of Hezbollah fighters, while Hezbollah will in return hand over two Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers -- reservists Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev -- captured by Hezbollah in a 2006 cross-border raid which sparked a month-long war between Israel and Hezbollah.

According to an anonymous IDF source, the exchange will probably take place in mid-July if the final arrangements could be made.

Also on Monday, the IDF confirmed that it has begun unearthing and identifying bodies of Hezbollah militants for the exchange at the Amiad cemetery near the Israel-Lebanon border.

On June 29, the Israeli cabinet approved the prisoner swap deal with Hezbollah, which will bring back Regev and Goldwasser who Olmert said were already dead.

A majority of Israeli ministers voted in favor of the deal at the end of a weekly cabinet meeting, after Olmert urged the cabinet to greenlight the proposal to exchange Lebanese prisoners with the two IDF soldiers.

Although favored by many, the swap deal was also shadowed by doubts. Israel's intelligence and security chiefs had urged the ministers to vote against the swap, saying that such a deal would encourage the militants to carry out more kidnappings.

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