Israeli asks Arab women to help in hostage release

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 28 (Reuters) The wife of an Israeli soldier abducted by Hezbollah guerrillas said no one had responded to her appeal to Lebanese and Palestinian women to combine forces to get prisoners released.

Karnit Goldwasser's husband Ehud and Binyamin Regev's brother Eldad were captured by Hezbollah in a cross-border raid last summer, triggering a 34-day war in which 1,200 Lebanese, mostly civilians, and 157 Israelis, mostly soldiers, were killed.

They spoke to reporters after urging UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to keep up pressure to free the soldiers. A UN Security Council cease-fire resolution in August had asked Ban to secure their release.

''I think a wife wherever in the world, if her husband was kidnapped, in Israel or in Lebanon, if she is a Jew or if she is a Muslim, she has the same feeling. ''Goldwasser said yesterday.

''Their loved ones are not at home and our loved ones are not at home.'' Hezbollah, a Shi'ite Muslim militia, has ignored UN calls to release the soldiers and said Israel must first free Lebanese prisoners and possibly others held in its jails.

Goldwasser said she anticipated some kind of prisoner exchange but was not aware of any details.

Asked about Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, she said she and others appealed to their wives and mothers because ''unfortunately we have the same problem.'' ''We are calling them whenever we can to meet us, to combine forces and to bring back their beloved ones and our beloved ones.'' said Goldwasser, married only a year ago. ''Unfortunately they didn't have yet the ability to accept our call.'' Former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan had appointed a mediator, who Ban has kept in place, to secure the release of the two Israelis.

The facilitator was identified by Der Spiegel magazine as a German intelligence agent and UN diplomats confirmed this account to Reuters.

Ban, who took office on January 1, promised to continue the work of his predecessor, Goldwasser said.

Particularly painful, she said, was the refusal of Hezbollah to allow the Red Cross to see her husband and report on his condition, as was the practice in Israeli jails.

''If we have information, maybe the Israeli government will release prisoners,'' she said. ''We know they got injured (but) not if they saw a doctor.'' ''If the Red Cross visits them, it will be the start of the end of the conflict,'' Goldwasser said more in hope than in certainty. ''Israel and Lebanon will be the winners.'' REUTERS SBA RN0716