Israel ready for Hizbollah prisoner swap: Report

Jerusalem, Aug 1: Israel is ready to swap two Lebanese prisoners in exchange for two soldiers whose capture by Hizbollah guerrillas triggered a three-week-old war, Israel's Haaretz newspaper said today.

The daily quoted government and defence officials as saying that such a deal could be part of a ceasefire agreement. Israel had said it would not negotiate a prisoner exchange after Hizbollah seized the two in a July 12 border raid.

Israeli officials were not immediately available for comment on the Haaretz report.

The paper said Israel would be ready to free Abu Amra Mamad, a Lebanese convicted of possessing weapons, and one illegal alien in exchange for the soldiers Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser.

But it said Israel would not agree to free the longest-held Lebanese detainee, Samir Qantar, who was captured during a 1979 attack in Israel in which guerrillas killed a policeman, another man and his four-year-old daughter.

In 2004, Hizbollah and Israel exchanged the bodies of three Israeli soldiers kidnapped in 2000 and an abducted Israeli businessman for the release of 400 Palestinian and 23 Lebanese and Arab prisoners in a German-negotiated deal.

Reuters

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