Region | Palestinian Territories

Israel agrees to swap prisoners with Hezbollah

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has concluded that Israel should swap the perpetrator of a particularly grisly terror attack for two Israeli soldiers held in Lebanon for the past two years, a senior government official confirmed on Sunday.

  • AP
  • Published: 11:50 June 15, 2008
  • Gulf News

Occupied Jerusalem: Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has concluded that Israel should swap the perpetrator of a particularly grisly terror attack for two Israeli soldiers held in Lebanon for the past two years, a senior government official confirmed on Sunday.

Samir Kantar is serving multiple life sentences for killing four Israelis in a 1979 infiltration of an apartment building in northern Israel. Among the dead were a 28-year-old man and his 4-year-old daughter.

Israel had hoped Kantar would be a bargaining chip to wrest information from Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas about the fate of a missing Israeli navigator captured in Lebanon
in 1986.

But Olmert and other senior Israeli leaders have concluded Hezbollah has no new information about navigator Ron Arad, the government officials said.

And he is willing to swap Kantar for two Israeli soldiers Hezbollah seized in a July 2006 cross-border raid that sparked a monthlong war with Israel, they added, speaking on condition of anonymity because no deal has been finalised.

Soldiers Udi Goldwasser and Eldad Regev are believed to have been badly wounded during their capture, and Hezbollah has offered no proof they are alive.

Olmert plans to meet with the Arad family on Tuesday to inform them about the impending deal, the officials said.

No timetable for a swap has been disclosed.

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