Israel to Swap Kantar for 2 Israeli Soldiers?
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has concluded that the Jewish state should swap the dean of Lebanese prisoners Samir Kantar for two Israeli soldiers kidnapped by Hizbullah in July 2006, a senior government official confirmed.
Hizbullah seized Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser in a July 2006 deadly cross-border raid that sparked a monthlong war with Israel. They are thought to have been badly wounded during their capture, and Hizbullah has offered no proof they are alive.
Kantar is serving multiple life sentences for killing four Israelis in a 1979 attack on an apartment building in northern Israel.
The Jewish state had hoped Kantar would be a bargaining chip to wrest information from Hizbullah about the fate of a missing Israeli navigator captured in Lebanon in 1986.
But Olmert and other senior Israeli leaders have concluded Hizbullah has no new information about navigator Ron Arad, and is willing to swap Kantar for the two Israeli soldiers, the government official said Sunday.
Olmert plans to meet with the Arad family on Tuesday to inform them about the impending deal, the official said.
Arad was forced to parachute out of his fighter jet on a mission over Lebanon in October 1986 after one of his aircraft”s bombs apparently malfunctioned. The jet”s pilot was rescued by Israeli forces, but Arad was captured by Amal movement fighters. There have been reports that Arad later was transferred to Hizbullah and then to Iran, but no reliable evidence of his fate has ever surfaced.
Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said last year that he believed Arad was dead.
In all, Israel is believed to be holding seven Lebanese prisoners, including Kantar. Four others would be swapped for the soldiers in addition to Kantar, the government official said.