By Xinhua,
Jerusalem : The Israeli cabinet Sunday approved the release of five Palestinian prisoners as part of the final stages of a prisoner exchange deal signed between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah group in July.
The five security prisoners, who were to be released in the coming months, were arrested for stone-throwing, according to the website of local daily Ha’aretz.
The release of the Palestinians would mark the conclusion of the prisoners swap deal, in which the bodies of Israeli reservists HUD Goldwasser and Eldad Regev were returned from Lebanon about two weeks ago in exchange for Samir Kuntar, four Hezbollah gunmen and the remains of 199 slain Lebanese gunmen.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will present the cabinet with a document authorizing the ministerial panel in charge of prisoner affairs to select the five Palestinians it wishes to release within the framework of the deal, the report said.
It was reported that the relatively low number of prisoners slated for release stems from Israeli government’s dissatisfaction with Hezbollah’s report on missing navigator Ron Arad, who disappeared after his plane was shot down over Lebanon in 1986.
The report, a part of the prisoner exchange deal, did not include any new information and was considered to have failed to meet the terms of the deal.