 |
 |
 |
|
|
Part of a poster urging return of the abducted soldiers (www.habanim.org)
|
|
|
|
 |
| |
 |
Family-killer Kuntar. No regrets, wants to kill more.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| By Israel Insider staff June 22, 2008 |
|
| |
 Bookmark to del.icio.us |
| |
Defense officials express concern that Israel may release to Hezbollah one or more live terrorists and get in return only bodies of IDF soldiers. Sensing Israeli weakness, the terror group is now demanding scores of Palestinian prisoners as well. As a result, the government may pronounce kidnapped IDF reservists Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev as "fallen soldiers whose burial places unknown." Army Radio quoted defense officials as suggesting in a special meeting with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Sunday.
Following Sunday's cabinet meeting, officials told Army Radio that determining whether the two were alive or dead was vital in deciding how to proceed with a prisoner swap. The cabinet is expected to discuss and vote on the deal Wednesday."
Remarkably, the Israeli government appears has reportedly negotiated a deal involving the release of the notorious Samir Kuntar, the unrepentant terrorist multiple murderer without even obtaining proof of life of Goldwasser and Regev, abducted on the Lebanon border in July 2006.
Hezbollah has provided no proof of life. The two are known to have been wounded during the ambush.
The report said that the prime minister was presented with various options, including the option of declaring the soldiers dead and calling off the deal. "Senior officials in the defense establishment are of the opinion that [Israel] should not swap live prisoners for bodies," officials told the radio station. The issue is to be brought to the cabinet for a vote on Wednesday. Defense officials are concerned that trading bodies for a high-value live terrorist would remove incentives in the future to keep captured soldiers alive.
While Israel has in the past traded live terrorists for the bodies of soldiers, the terrorists have never been as notorious and unrepentant a killer as Kuntar, who was responsible for the death of four member of the Haran family of the seaside town of Nahariya in a grisly attack during the 1970s, including bashing a small boy to death in front of his father, killing the father and causing the mother to smother to death her own daughter when the terrorists entered the family home near the Lebanese border. (Read 33 Israel Insider articles and opinions about Kuntar and his inclusion in a potential prisoner swap here.)
Israeli intelligence sources say publicly that it has not yet determined definitively whether the soldiers are alive or dead. But the fact that the proposed deal reportedly involves the release of only a small number of Lebanese terrorists has led many to conclude that Hezbollah does not hold live soldiers. The price, it is presumed, would be much higher, if the soldiers were alive. There has long been speculation that at some point the Israeli government would declare the two as killed in action.
The families of the adbucted soldiers met with Shas's spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef and its chairman Eli Yishai on Sunday to ask that the party support the deal. The parents of the soldiers have expressed high confidence that their sons are alive. Yosef expressed his wishes that the two return home safely, and asked Yishai to update him on the details of the deal after Sunday's cabinet meeting. He reportedly did not make any commitments.
|
|
 
|
|
|
|
Click on the blue headline to read a Talkback comment and respond to it. Click on the  icon to send a private email to the talkback writer. The icon appears only if the writer has decided to be contacted. If no popup window appears, please make sure your popup blocker allows israelinsider.com.
|
|
| |
|
|
