Israeli cabinet approves Hezbollah prisoner swap

By Dan Williams

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert won his cabinet's approval on Sunday for a prisoner swap with Hezbollah under which two soldiers held by the Lebanese guerrilla group, and believed to be dead, would be recovered.

The seizure of army reservists Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev in a July 2006 border ambush triggered a month-long war in Lebanon, with Olmert ruling out talks on their return. He then relented, negotiating through a U.N.-appointed German mediator.

Olmert told government ministers before they voted 22-3 to approve the deal that Israel believed the two soldiers did not survive their capture, cabinet sources said.

An official Israeli statement said that in the exchange, Israel would release five Lebanese gunmen and at a later stage an undisclosed number of Palestinian prisoners. Dozens of bodies of slain infiltrators and the remains of eight Hezbollah men killed in the 2006 war would also be handed over.

The statement did not give a date for the swap, and there was no immediate comment from Hezbollah.

Topping the list of those to be released by Israel is Samir Qantar, who is serving a life sentence for a 1979 raid on the northern Israeli coastal town of Nahariya.

Qantar was convicted after testimony he shot dead an unarmed Israeli man and killed his four-year-old daughter by bashing in her skull. Qantar's family says the two probably died in cross-fire during the infiltration from the sea.

Olmert had described Qantar as the last "bargaining chip" for word on the fate of Israeli air force navigator Ron Arad.

Arad disappeared into captivity after bailing out during a 1986 bombing run in Lebanon. Hezbollah has denied having knowledge on his whereabouts. Clemency for Qantar would be seen as an Israeli admission that the airman's trail has gone cold.

Israel also promised, as part of the exchange deal, to provide information to the United Nations about four Iranian diplomats who went missing in Beirut during the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, the statement said.

"MORAL ORDER"

"This is a matter of the highest moral order," Olmert said in a broadcast statement before the debate. He said he had "vacillated deeply" over the deal after hearing arguments Israel should return only bodies to Hezbollah if its troops were dead.

In Beirut, a Lebanese political source said the deal could take place "within a few days".

Bloodstains and blast damage at the scene of the Hezbollah raid in which Goldwasser and Regev were taken to Lebanon prompted Israeli officials to conclude that one or both of the captives did not survive. Eight other troops died outright.

Hezbollah has given no details on the captives' condition.