Hints of progress towards Israel-Hezbollah prisoner exchange deal

According to a report by Haaretz, an Israeli source said yesterday that Israel and Hezbollah reached a deal over the release of captured IDF soldiers in Lebanon, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev. The source said that the IDF soldiers, who were captured in a cross border raid by Hezbollah in July 2006, would be exchanged for Samir Kuntar, a terrorist imprisoned in Israel since 1979, an Israeli citizen jailed for spying for Hezbollah and four other Hezbollah members captured by Israel during the Second Lebanon War. The timetable for the swap is not clear, and another Israeli source said that Israel has not received any information in recent days to indicate that a deal is within reach.

In related developments, Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah during a speech yesterday hinted at progress in a possible prisoner swap between Israel and Hezbollah. Nasrallah said that Samir Kuntar would soon return to Lebanon. Bassam Kuntar, the brother of jailed terrorist Samir, told a German DPA news agency yesterday that his family was updated of a positive outcome that is expected to occur within 30 days.

The relatively small scale of the deal may be indicative to the Israeli soldiers' condition. A report prepared by Israeli defence experts following the attack suggested the Regev and Goldwasser were seriously injured, but could not determine whether the two survived the attack.

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