MIDDLE EAST:Israel and Lebanon's Hizbullah group will exchange prisoners on Wednesday under a UN-mediated deal, the Israeli prisons service said yesterday.
A spokesman said Israeli soldiers Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev would be exchanged for five Lebanese prisoners, including Samir Qantar, jailed for life for killing an Israeli policeman, another man and his four-year-old daughter in a raid on northern Israel in 1979.
Hizbullah has given no word on the condition of the two soldiers, although they are widely presumed to be dead. They were captured in a cross-border Hizbullah raid that led to a war between the Iranian-backed group and Israel in 2006.
As part of the deal, negotiated by a German intelligence officer, Israel will hand over the bodies of 200 Arabs killed while infiltrating northern Israel.
Hizbullah will return the remains of Israeli soldiers killed in south Lebanon in 2006. Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert had described Samir Qantar as the last bargaining chip for word on the fate of Israeli airman Ron Arad.
Lieut Col Arad disappeared after bailing out during a bombing run on Lebanon in 1986. Under the prisoner exchange agreement, Hizbullah provided Israel with a report on Lieut Col Arad, who was captured by a different Lebanese group, Amal.
Israeli defence minister Ehud Barak told security officials that the Hizbullah dossier failed to give a definitive answer on Lieut Col Arad's fate. "The report on Ron Arad, as passed by Hizbullah, does not give a clear answer on the fate of Ron Arad and does not resolve the issue. We are compelled to continue to work to discover what happened to him," the defence ministry said. - ( Reuters)