Tel Aviv - The German mediator negotiating a prisoner swap
between Israel and the Lebanese Hezbollah movement assumes the two
Israeli soldiers held by the Iranian-backed group are no longer
alive, the Israeli Yediot Ahronot daily reported Friday morning.
Gerhard Konrad told the Israeli government several weeks ago that
he believed Hezbollah was not holding any live soldiers, only dead
bodies, the report said.
Hezbollah snatched the two soldiers, Ehud (Udi) Goldwasser and
Eldad Regev, in a July 2006 cross-border raid, which sparked the
33-day war between Israel and the Lebanese guerrillas.
The war ended without Israel securing the release of the two, who
have not been heard from since they were taken.
Goldwasser's wife Karnit was quoted in the Israeli daily as saying
that 'I understand the situation, after not receiving a sign of life
from Udi for two years.'
His mother, Mickey, said that 'I spoke with a very senior
official just this morning, voicing my frustration and concerns to
him, and he did not say a word to me about this. It is hard for me to
take this in.'
'We do not know anything about this. No government or army
representative informed us about the condition of our sons or what
the German mediator allegedly said. I pray that this is only an
unfounded assessment. From my perspective as a father, Eldad is
alive,' Regev's father, Zvi, said.
According to media reports this week, Israel has agreed to release
Lebanese prisoners, including 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, Nassim Nasser, 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.
Nasser is to be released Sunday, sources said, and Israel has
denied this move is part of any prisoner exchange.
The media reports were fuelled by a speech Hezbollah leader Hassan
Nasrallah gave Monday, in which he said that Lebanese prisoners held
in Israeli jails would soon return home.
'Samir Kantar and his brothers will soon be home among their
families,' he said in remarks to commemorate the eighth anniversary
of Israel's withdrawal from southern Lebanon in May 2000.
A senior Israeli official confirmed Tuesday that progress has been
made in indirect talks with Hezbollah, but cautioned that no
agreement had been reached.
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