Jerusalem - A senior Israeli official confirmed Tuesday that
progress has been made in indirect talks with Lebanon's militant
Hezbollah movement on a prisoner exchange, but cautioned that no
agreement had been reached.
'The ball is now in Hezbollah's court,' the official told Israel
Radio on condition of anonymity because the negotiations, led by
German mediator Gerhard Konrad, are classified.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's spokesman, Mark Regev, would
not comment.
Israel and the Lebanese Shiite militant movement have been
negotiating a prisoner swap since their 33-day war in the summer of
2006. Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers, Ehud Goldwasser and
Eldad Regev, in a July 2006 cross-border raid, which sparked the
Israeli invasion and aerial bombing.
Local media reported that Israel would release Samir Kantar, a
Lebanese militant jailed for killing a father and his daughter in a
1979 infiltration into the northern Israeli coastal town of Nahariya,
an Israeli citizen jailed for espionage on Hezbollah's behalf and
four other Hezbollah fighters captured in the 2006 war. The deal
reportedly would also include the bodies of 10 Lebanese held by
Israel.
The Israeli reports come after Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan
Nasrallah hinted Monday at a possible deal, when he said Lebanese
prisoners held in Israeli jails would soon return home.
'Samir Kantar and his brothers will soon be home among their
families,' Nasrallah said in a speech to commemorate the eighth
anniversary of Israel's withdrawal from southern Lebanon in May 2000.
A Western diplomat in Beirut also said the German mediator
registered 'some progress' in the talks.
'All I can say is that the German mediators have been successful
in removing some of the prevailing obstacles which registered some
progress in the file on prisoners,' the diplomat told Deutsche
Presse-Agentur dpa.
Samir Kantar's brother, Bassam Kantar, also told dpa his family
had been informed 'of some positive developments within the next 30
days regarding my brother as well as all the other prisoners held in
Israel.'
There was no indication whether Palestinian prisoners, whose
release Hezbollah had also demanded, would be included in the deal.
It was also unclear whether Israel would be receiving information
on Ron Arad, an Israel Air Force navigator who was shot down over
Lebanon in 1986, and who is listed as 'missing in action,' his
current whereabouts unknown.
A previous deal, never implemented, was to have seen Kantar
released in exchange for credible information on Arad's fate.
USA
Your Talkback on this Story