Israel okays Hezbollah prisoner swap despite snag
Israel”s cabinet gave the final go-ahead on Tuesday for a prisoner swap with Hezbollah, despite saying the Lebanese Shiite militant movement had not fully kept its side of the bargain.
The decision set the ball rolling for the release on Wednesday of five Lebanese prisoners, including the perpetrator of a brutal 1979 triple murder, in exchange for two soldiers captured by Hezbollah guerrillas in a deadly 2006 raid that sparked a vicious 34-day war.
"The government has ratified the deal," Deputy Prime Minister Eli Yishai told reporters after the cabinet meeting, which adopted the measure by a vote of 22-3.
The families of the two Israeli soldiers — Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev — have never been told of their fate, although both are widely believed to be dead.
The cabinet first approved the swap deal in June, but was asked to endorse it again after Israel received a Hezbollah report on missing airman Ron Arad, whose fate has long been a cause celebre in the Jewish state.
Arad has been missing since his plane was shot down over Lebanon in 1986 during the civil war, and although the report said he was probably dead, Israel has rejected its findings.
A cabinet statement said the report "does not meet the conditions of the agreement over the fate of Ron Arad. The Israeli government will continue in its efforts to retrieve any possible information over the fate of Ron Arad."
Yishai said the swap came at "a much lower price than what we had to pay in the past, with all the pain involved in it. We did not want to put the Regev and Goldwasser families in the same situation as the Arad family."
Welfare Minister Isaac Herzog said "we should make every possible effort to get more information on Ron Arad and secure the release of Gilad Shalit."
Shalit was captured in a 2006 raid by several Gaza militant groups including the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas that now rules the territory, and he is still being held.
"The issue of Ron Arad is an open wound that will not be solved through the release of Samir Kantar," Public Security Minister Avi Dichter said. "We will have to continue working in order to bring an answer to his family, the nation and the army."
The UN-brokered swap, the eighth between Israel and Hezbollah since 1991, stirred controversy over the decision to release Samir Kantar , a Lebanese militant who murdered three Israeli civilians including a child in 1979.
Israel will also hand over the remains of 200 Lebanese and Palestinians.
Before the exchange can proceed, Israel”s Supreme Court must also hear three petitions against it, and President Shimon Peres must formally pardon the five Lebanese.
Peres said it was "not a happy day for having to free such murderers but we have a moral responsibility to bring our soldiers home."
The Goldwasser and Regev families have been pushing hard for the swap.
Goldwasser”s father Shlomo told AFP that if his son comes home in a coffin Hezbollah must pay the price.
"Our basic assumption has been that they were kidnapped alive. If they return in coffins it would mean they were killed. Those who killed them must pay with their lives and should join Imad Mughnieh if that is the case."
Mughnieh was a top Hezbollah commander murdered in Damascus in February. Hezbollah blamed Israel for his death, but the Jewish state denied involvement.
"Come what may we are simply happy that the affair will be over," Goldwasser said.
While the mood in Israel is sombre, Hezbollah plans a hero”s welcome for its fighters, with celebratory banners and flags lining the main highway from the border with Israel at Naqura to Lebanon”s southern port city of Sidon.
"We are a people who will not abandon our detainees in prison," reads one banner, taken from a pledge by Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah. "Thanks to the weapons of the resistance, we will free our prisoners," says another.