Israel releases interview with captured Hizbullah man

 

Israel has released an interview with a Hizbullah fighter it is holding, an official said Friday, in an apparent gesture to the Lebanese-based group to win the release of soldiers the group captured last year. The tape of the Hizbullah prisoner was aired Thursday on the Saudi Arabian-owned satellite channel MBC, Israel”s Army Radio reported Friday.

 

An Israeli government spokesman, Mark Regev, confirmed that Israel had released the tape aired on MBC. But he would not say why.

 

The radio said that the publication was apparently part of an Israeli goodwill gesture to get Hizbullah to release two Israeli soldiers it captured in July 2006 in an incident that sparked a 34-day war between Israel and Lebanon. Hizbullah refused to comment.

 

The resistance group has not allowed the Red Cross to see the soldiers, and it is not known whether they are alive.

 

Israel is thought to be holding seven Lebanese prisoners.

 

Talks of a new prisoner swap to bring home the two captured soldiers have not yielded any results so far. But Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said in October that there had been “positive progress” in regards to negotiations.