Condition of captured Israeli soldiers still unknown

Madrid: Former Lebanese President Ameen Gemayel declined commenting about the fate of the two Israeli soldiers captured by Hezbollah in July last year.

He told Gulf News that two journalists shook hands with him while entering one of the the sessions of Madrid +15 conference at the InterContinental Hotel in Madrid who happened to be Israelis.

"I learnt later that the two were from two Israeli newspapers, which, to my surprise, carried a statement by me that the Israeli soldiers were safe and at a good hand of Hezbollah," he told Gulf News.

Gemayel said he would not comment about the soldiers if he was asked such a question because no one knows about the fate of the two Israelis except the Secretary General of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah.

An Israeli daily, Maariv, said one of Gemayel's advisors told them: "[The soldiers] are alive", and that Gemayel confirmed the statement. Asked if there was a reasonable chance the two soldiers would return home unharmed, Gemayel said: "We all hope that this would indeed happen", Maariv reported.

It was not clear how Gemayel, who belongs to a political faction at odds with Hezbollah, would be privy to information about the fate of the soldiers.

Gemayel was president of Lebanon from 1982 to 1988. The fate of Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, who were captured in a cross-border raid on July 12, has been the subject of much speculation.

- With additional inputs from agencies