OCCUPIED JERUSALEM (AFP)
Israel has received a report from Hezbollah on airman Ron Arad who went missing in Lebanon in 1986, under a deal for a prisoner swap expected to take place next week, Israeli media said on Saturday.
The cabinet has approved the deal under which it is to release five Lebanese prisoners, the remains of Hezbollah fighters and a number of Palestinians in exchange for the bodies of Israeli soldiers Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev.
The media reports, which were not immediately confirmed by the government, said the Lebanese group Hezbollah said in its report that Arad had died but it had no specific information.
Officials had made it clear the deal would go ahead only after Israel received intelligence on the air force navigator missing since a mission over south Lebanon during the country's civil war.
According to news reports, Hezbollah told Israel through U.N. negotiator Gerhard Konrad that Arad is dead. Israel wanted the Shiite militia to explain how it reached that conclusion and why it could not locate Arad's remains.
The government is to decide on Tuesday whether to go ahead with the exchange without specific new information.
Goldwasser and Regev were captured by Hezbollah in a cross-border raid in July 2006 that sparked a devastating 34-day war in Lebanon. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told his cabinet the two soldiers were dead. |
