RAMALLAH: The Israeli Cabinet yesterday voted to authorize the deal to return two Israel soldiers captured by the Lebanon-based Hezbollah group in 2006, in exchange for five Lebanese resistance fighters jailed in Israeli prisons. The deal was approved with a majority vote of 22 ministers in favor and three opposed.
The agreement will see the repatriation of captive Israeli soldiers Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev in return for the release of Lebanese prisoner Samir Kantar and four other Hezbollah fighters arrested during the July 2006 War on Lebanon. Israel will also return the bodies of 190 combatants.
Israel believes both Goldwasser and Regev are dead, with evidence suggesting they were killed either during the abduction raid itself or shortly thereafter of their wounds. Hezbollah kidnapped the two in a brazen cross-border attack on a military patrol convoy on July 12, 2006. The incident sparked the 2006 War, in which one of the chief stated objectives was retrieving the captives. Chief Israeli Military Rabbi Brig.-Gen. Avi Ronsky has also said there is sufficient intelligence information to declare the captives “killed in action.”
Among those who objected to the deal yesterday was Justice Minister Daniel Friedmann, who said that despite his personal objection to the deal, he would sign the necessary papers to release Kantar.
“My position on the matter is well known and it has not changed. However, I will respect the government’s decision and will sign the necessary documents for Kantar’s release within the hour, after which they will be transferred to the president for the pardon,” said Friedmann.
Red Cross interviews
Meanwhile representatives of the Red Cross have met with the Lebanese prisoners ahead of their release. The humanitarian organization’s spokeswoman in Israel, Yael Segev-Eitan, said “over the course of the past 24 hours we have completed our interviews with the five Lebanese prisoners, the four taken captive during the Lebanon War and the prisoner Kantar.
The process of their release and return to Lebanon from Israel was explained to them.” Segev-Eitan said that the Red Cross has already prepared for the transportation of the bodies to Lebanon and that nine of the organization’s vehicles were already stationed at an Israeli army’s base to this end.
