Tel Aviv - The Israeli government said Tuesday it will only
give the final go-head for an announced prisoners swap with Lebanon's
Hezbollah militant movement after it receives a final, satisfactory
report on missing Israel Air Force navigator Ron Arad.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's representative, Ofer Dekel,
signed the prisoners exchange deal in a meeting in Germany Sunday
with United Nations-appointed mediator, Gerhad Conrad.
Conrad was also to have handed over to Dekel a thorough report
composed by Hezbollah, in which it details the efforts it has made
over the years to find out the fate of Arad, whose plane was shot
down over Lebanon in 1986 and who disappeared without trace several
years later.
But according to Israeli media reports, Dekel refused to bring the
report to Israel with him and asked the German mediator to hand it
back to Hezbollah, demanding it answer a series of questions that it
has left unanswered.
According to the Israeli Ma'ariv daily, Israel among others wants
the names and dates of the people whom Hezbollah questioned on Arad.
A senior advisor to Olmert, Mark Regev, would not comment on the
details published in the Israeli media, but confirmed Israel had yet
to receive the final report.
He said the agreed on timetable for implementation of the deal
would only begin after Israel receives the final report.
'The clock will start ticking when we receive the report on Ron
Arad,' Regev told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.
A statement from the prime minister's office published overnight
confirmed that Israel had signed the deal with the UN envoy.
But it warned that 'the continued implementation of the deal is
conditioned on several components, regarding which no details will be
given.'
The statement also added that Olmert will again convene his
cabinet for final approval of the deal after receiving and studying
the report on Arad.
The Israeli cabinet had initially approved the deal in a lengthy
and stormy debate Sunday last week.
Israel has nevertheless begun with concrete preparations ahead of
the deal.
The Israeli military on Monday began exhuming the bodies of some
190 Hezbollah guerrillas which are to be handed over as part of the
swap, which until now was expected to take place sometime next week.
Prior to the exhumations, bulldozers begun clearing vegetation at
Israel's 'cemetery for fallen enemy soldiers,' in the north of the
country. The Israeli army on Sunday had declared the burial site,
which contains numbered, anonymous graves, a 'closed military zone,'
to enable the preparations.
Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah had said last week the
exchange would get underway around July 15. Israeli officials too had
told local media that the swap would likely happen early or mid-next
week.
Under the exchange, Israel is to free Samir Kuntar, its longest-
held Lebanese prisoner, as well as four Hezbollah fighters captured
in the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war. It will also hand over the some 190
bodies of Hezbollah guerillas killed in battles with Israel.
Hezbollah, for its part, is to hand over two Israeli reserve
soldiers snatched in a July 2006 cross-border raid which had sparked
the month-long war. Hezbollah has never allowed the Red Cross to
visit its two captives, and released no sign of life from them since
they were snatched. Officials in Jerusalem believe the two soldiers,
Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser, are dead.
Hezbollah is also to hand over body parts of other Israeli
soldiers killed in fighting in Lebanon.
The exchange is to take place via the Red Cross at the northern
Israeli border crossing with Lebanon of Rosh Hanikra.
Kuntar is serving multiple life sentences for leading a 1979
infiltration and hostage taking, in which he and his men burst into a
residential building in the northern Israeli coastal town of
Nahariya, took hostage a father and his four-year-old daughter and
killed both. Two Israeli policemen were also killed.
Israel had thus far refused to include Kuntar - seen as a key
bargaining chip for information on Ron Arad - in previous prisoner
exchanges.
Lord ReptorJul 10th, 2008 - 03:18:04
Re: Israeli soldiers captured by Hizbullah: Cross-border raid? My understanding was that the two soldiers captured by Hizbullah and now to be returned were outside Israel at the time of their capture. Something about a bungled attack on some village, wasn't it?
One other thing seems interesting here - the conditions around Israeli acceptance of the Hizbullah report regarding the pilot lost (while flying illegally) over Lebanon. The article states that Israel demands 'the names of those questioned by Hizbullah regarding (the lost pilot - name escapes me)'. Uuuum - wouldn't releasing those names be, like, a total security risk for the Hizbullah informants/members involved?
That would be like Hizbullah asking Israel for a list of Mossad informants in Lebanon as a condition for accepting a negotiation offer. As in 'not bloody likely'. Seem an unreasonable idea, anyway.
Just my two cents (, get them while you can!),
Lord Reptor.
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