The cabinet gave its final approval Tuesday for a controversial swap with Hezbollah, in which Israel is expected to receive the bodies of captured soldiers Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser, reportedly murdered in captivity by the terrorists, in exchange for five Lebanese prisoners to Lebanon, family-murderer Samir Kuntar among them.
The swap is due to take place on Wednesday at 9 a.m. under UN auspices at the Rosh Hanikra border crossing between Israel and Lebanon.
Hizbullah has given no evidence that soldiers Goldwasser and Regev are alive, and has not allowed the Red Cross to see them since they were captured on July 12, 2006, in a cross-border raid. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told the cabinet last week that Israel believes the men did not survive.
The deal, approved in a 22-3 vote, would close a painful chapter from Israel's inconclusive war against Hizbullah, which was sparked by the soldiers' capture. But it would represent an unprecedented slippage in the nation's principle that live terrorist should not be swapped for dead soldiers, since that reduces the incentive for terror groups to keep prisoners alive.
The first stage of the swap deal was completed over the weekend, when Hizbullah transferred to Israel an 80-page report on the fate of Israel airman Ron Arad, who was shot down over Lebanon in 1986 and held by the Amal Shi'ite group until the night of May 4, 1988, when he disappeared. The terror group also released personal effects including letters and photos, which the family of the downed navigator agreed to release for publication.
Mossad chief called the report a "fraud" and said that the substance of the 80 page report could be condensed to half a page. Corpulent Cabinet Minister Benyamin Ben-Eliezer, who voted for the deal said that Israel would "return" the report in protest -- along with the man who smashed a little girl's head with the butt of his rifle on the rocks of Nahariya.
Sad testimony: a historical report on Israel's previous refusal to release Kuntar:
Kuntar -- who led a gang responsible for killing an Israeli policeman asnd three members of the Haran family in Nahariya -- and the four Lebanese prisoners, captured in the Second Lebanon War, will receive an official state welcoming ceremoney when they are released Wednesday. A huge rally will be held later in the day in Beirut's southern suburbs where Hizbullah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah will speak, the terror group's Al-Manar TV said.
French news agency AFP reports that the coastal road from the Israeli border to the southern port city of Sidon has been covered with Hizbullah decorations, and hundreds of volunteers have been hanging banners to praise Hizbullah's role in the prisoners' release throughout the south of the country.
In Kuntar's home in Abey, streets are decorated with banners welcoming the return of the former member of the radical Palestine Liberation Front. "Samir Kuntar is the conscience of Lebanon, Palestine and the Arab nation. Abey welcomes the hero, prisoner Samir Kuntar," one sign read.
A senior Hizbullah official said Israel's approval of a prisoner swap with his group is an "official admission of defeat." Hizbullah's commander in south Lebanon, Sheik Nabil Kaouk, said Tuesday that Wednesday's prisoner exchange showed Israel's "humiliating failure in confronting the resistance militarily and politically."
But Miki Goldwasser, mother of kidnapped IDF reservist Ehud Goldwasser, told Israel Radio Tuesday afternoon that she thought that the cabinet's decision to ratify the prisoner exchange deal with Hizbullah was a triumph for Israel. She said Lebanese plans to celebrate the release of Kuntar was a "shame" to the Lebanese nation: "our nation is strong, and knows what is dear to it, and what we will fight over. I want to see my nation hold up its head in pride and say 'we won.'"
Zvi Regev, father of kidnapped IDF reservist Eldad Regev said he was holding out hope his son might still be alive, despite universal assessments that both soldiers are dead. "I really hope this nightmare will end tomorrow," he told Israel Radio. "We will accept whatever will be. We need to be strong and accept it for better or for worse."
Remarkably, the Israeli media is officially treating the question of whether Goldwasser and Regev are alive or dead as something of a mystery, and political officials are paying lip service to the question of whether Israel should expect a welcoming ceremony or a funeral ceremony for its "returning" soldiers.
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