Prisoner swap set for Israel and Hezbollah

JERUSALEM - The Israeli government said yesterday that it would swap prisoners with the Lebanese guerrilla group Hezbollah on Wednesday, closing a chapter between the enemies two years after they fought an inconclusive war.

The prison service said that Israel would free five Lebanese, including the perpetrator of one of the most notorious attacks in Israeli history. In exchange, Hezbollah is to return two soldiers it captured in a cross-border raid that sparked the 2006 war. Israel believes the soldiers are dead.

After nearly two years of negotiations through German mediators, Israel's government approved the release on June 29, but it took several weeks to work out final arrangements. The Israeli announcement came a day after the government received a report from Hezbollah on a missing Israeli soldier who disappeared in Lebanon two decades ago. That report was one of the last sticking points.

In the report, Hezbollah said it did not know what happened to Ron Arad, an Israeli air force navigator who was captured alive after his fighter jet went down in Lebanon in 1986, Israeli officials said.

According to the document, Hezbollah believes that Arad is dead, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the report was not released to the public. The Israeli cabinet is expected to discuss the report tomorrow.

Israeli officials said the report contains two new pictures of Arad and parts of a diary he kept in the 1980s. A letter was delivered to his family during that time, and a videotaped message Arad recorded in the late 1980s was released several years ago. But he has not been heard from since.

The prison service said it would free Samir Kantar, a Lebanese man serving multiple life terms for a 1979 attack. After infiltrating Israel, he killed a police officer, then kidnapped a man and his 4-year-old daughter and killed them outside their home.

His release has stirred emotional opposition from relatives of victims of the attack and others. Israel's Supreme Court last week turned down an appeal against his release from children of the dead police officer.

Israel said it would also release four Hezbollah prisoners captured in the 2006 war. Israel also is expected to turn over the bodies of about 200 Lebanese and Palestinian fighters. Military crews dug up the bodies from an Israeli cemetery last week in preparation for the exchange.

In return, Israel is to receive the two soldiers captured by Hezbollah in a cross-border raid on July 12, 2006, that set off a fierce 34-day war. More than 1,000 Lebanese, most of them civilians, were killed in the fighting, according to Lebanese officials, while 159 Israelis were killed, including 40 civilians killed by Hezbollah rockets.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has said he believes the captive Israeli soldiers are dead. Hezbollah has given no sign that they are alive, and the Red Cross has never been allowed to visit them.

Listing the names of the prisoners to be freed started a 48-hour period for Israelis to appeal against their release to the Supreme Court. The court was not expected to intervene.

Hezbollah has confirmed the planned swap, but it declined comment on Israel's announcement.

In Jerusalem, Red Cross spokesman Helge Kvam confirmed that Israel had approached his organization about assisting in the swap with Hezbollah.

As part of the deal, Israel is to provide information on four Iranian diplomats who disappeared in Lebanon in 1982. Iran contends that they were kidnapped by Lebanese militiamen allied with Israel, who delivered them to Israeli troops. Israel has long denied holding them, and Samir Geagea, former head of the disbanded Lebanese Forces, has said that militiamen killed them.