Israel, Hezbollah agree prisoner swap

The Israeli cabinet gave its green light on Sunday for a prisoner exchange with Hezbollah, even though two soldiers captured by the Lebanese militia two years ago are known to be dead.

The agreement was approved by 22 votes to three at a meeting of the Israeli cabinet, government officials said. Only the ministers of finance, justice and housing voted against the proposed deal.

Israel is seeking the return of Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser or their remains. The two were captured by Hezbollah guerrillas in a deadly cross-border raid on July 12, 2006 that sparked a devastating 34-day war in Lebanon.

At the start of the session, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert called on ministers to approve the proposed prisoner exchange even though the two soldiers were dead.

"Despite all hesitations, after weighing the pros and the cons, I support the agreement," he said.

"Our initial theory was that the soldiers were alive... Now we know with certainty there is no chance that that is the case."

Olmert urged his cabinet to vote in favour of the proposed deal "despite its high price".

"We have no illusions: there will be much sadness in Israel, much humiliation considering the celebrations that will be held on the other side," he said in reference to neighbouring Lebanon.

The heads of the Shin Beth internal security agency and of the Mossad foreign intelligence agency had urged ministers to vote against the deal.

Regev and Goldwasser are believed to have been badly wounded during their capture and the Shi'ite militants of Hezbollah, who are backed by Iran and Syria, have never provided any evidence that they are alive.

There was no immediate reaction from Hezbollah to the Israeli cabinet's decision.

The proposed deal has drawn criticism in Israel because it is believed to include the release of Lebanese prisoner Samir Kantar, who is currently serving a life sentence for killing two men and a four-year-old girl in a 1979 attack in northern Israel.

Kantar, a member of the Palestine Liberation Front, was sentenced in 1980 to 542 years in prison.

Olmert said Hezbollah's goal from the very beginning had been to secure the release of Kantar.

"Hezbollah's capture of two soldiers was aimed at forcing Israel to free Samir Kantar," Olmert told ministers during Sunday's meeting.

The capture of the two Israeli soldiers triggered a war in which 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed in Lebanon and 160 people, most of them soldiers, were killed in Israel.

Under the deal, Israel would release four more Lebanese prisoners, and hand over the bodies of eight Hezbollah fighters buried in Israel, an official said. "A certain number" of Palestinian prisoners would also be freed.

Ministers said it could take 10 days to two weeks for the prisoner swap to be carried out.

Defence Minister Ehud Barak earlier came out in favour of the deal.

"As a soldier, as an officer who commanded in combat, as defence minister, I consider we have a supreme responsibility to bring back our sons, dead or alive," he said in a statement before Sunday's meeting.

On June 1, Israel freed and deported to Lebanon a convicted Hezbollah spy and the Shi'ite militant group handed over the remains of Israeli soldiers killed in 2006.

Last October, Israel handed over a Hezbollah prisoner and the remains of two militants in return for the body of an Israeli and information on the fate of airman Ron Arad, missing since 1986.

Arad is believed to have been captured by the Shi'ite movement Amal.

In January 2006, Hezbollah supremo Hassan Nasrallah said the airman was probably dead although he had no proof.

The largest prisoner swap took place in January 2004 when Israel released 400 Palestinians and 31 other people, including 23 Lebanese, in exchange for an Israeli reservist and the remains of three Israeli soldiers.

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