By KUNA,
Gaza : Israel is holding contacts with Germany to finalize a deal with the Lebanese organization Hezbollah to exchange prisoners in line with a government approval of the tentative agreement on Sunday.
Ofar Dekel, a close aide to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, is due to hold contacts, in the coming few days with the United Nations hostage negotiator, Gerhard Konrad, to examine mechanisms of implementing the deal, Israel Radio said on Monday.
Dekel will be heading to Germany to sign the prisoners exchange deal and receive an intelligence report regarding destiny of the Israeli Air Force navigator, Ron Arad, who has been missing for 20 years, the radio added.
Arad’s plane was shut down during a raid on Palestinian bases near the southern Lebanese city of Sidon in the mid 80s. There had been various reports about his whereabouts, with an offshoot Lebanese Shiite faction implicated for his disappearance. Some reports indicated that he had died in captivity.
After reviewing the intelligence report regarding the air navigator, Israel will decide whether to execute the following phases of its agreement with Hezbollah, it said. Meanwhile, the Israeli daily “Ha’aretz” published in its today’s edition that Hezbollah would hand over a report, detailing the organization’s efforts to obtain information on Arad, noting that it had not been able to trace him over the past 20 years.
According to the deal terms, the veteran Lebanese prisoner Samir Kuntar along with other four prisoners will be pardoned and transferred to the Lebanese territories in addition to dead bodies of Hezbollah members, in return for handing over Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser, the two Israel Defense Forces reservists abducted by Hezbollah two years ago.
Israel said that both Israeli soldiers are most likely dead, and after executing this phase of the of the prisoner swap agreement, Tel aviv will determine the release mechanism of the Palestinian prisoners.
Hezbollah considers Israel’s approval of the agreement on the prisoners issue as “a proof that it has succeeded in imposing conditions.” Head of the Executive Council of the organization, Hashem Safi al-Din, said liberating the Lebanese prisoners “is a shining proof that 2006 war between the Lebanese party and Israel is harvesting its fruits.” Israel is holding as prisoner more than 11,000 male and female Palestinians, distributed over 30 jails and detention centers. Most of them served more than 20 years behind the cells bars.