Hizballah doing deals with foe
Israel is prepared to free five Lebanese prisoners and return the bodies of 10 Hezbollah fighters in exchange for the release of two of its soldiers captured in 2006, army radio said.
The report came after Lebanese sources said progress had been made in UN-sponsored talks on a prisoner exchange between Israel and the Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah.
Samir Kantar, the longest-serving Arab prisoner in Israel, is among those who could be exchanged, according to the army radio.
In exchange, Israel is demanding the return of two soldiers, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, who were captured by Hezbollah in a cross-border raid on July 12, 2006 that sparked a devastating 34-day war.
An Israeli official, on condition of anonymity, told AFP that the two sides now appeared to be ready to compromise.
Hezbollah dropped its linkage to Palestinian prisoners, while Israel had agreed to release Kantar without its previous insistence on concrete information on the fate of airman Ron Arad who was captured in 1986, he said.
In Lebanon, meanwhile, Kantar”s brother Bassam told AFP that he was expecting "positive developments within 30 days."
"I have been informed of very positive developments within the next 30 days concerning my brother as well as all the other prisoners held in Israel," said the brother.
"I have not been given any firm details but there are some encouraging signs," he added.
Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah also raised the issue on Monday in a speech marking the eighth anniversary of Israel”s withdrawal from south Lebanon after an occupation of two decades.
"Very soon, Samir Kantar and his brothers will be among us," he said, adding that Lebanon needed to come up with a strategy to liberate those detained in Israel. He did not elaborate.
Kantar, 45, was sentenced to 542 years in prison in 1980 for killing an Israeli man and his four-year-old daughter in an attack in the Israeli resort of Nahariya.
A Lebanese official close to the negotiations on an exchange said earlier that another prisoner, Nessim Nisr, was expected to be released soon. He did not give further details.
The last prisoner exchange between the Shiite group and Israel took place in October, with Hezbollah handing over the remains of one Israeli in exchange for the bodies of two militants and a prisoner.
It was the first such swap in nearly four years and came thanks to German and UN mediation.