Israel, Hezbollah Strike a Deal on Prisoner Swap

A long-anticipated prisoner exchange between Israel and the militant Islamic group Hezbollah appeared close to fruition Saturday, with the Israeli government, a lawyer and a German mediator reporting that a deal had been struck.

The exchange, however, will leave unresolved for the moment a pair of emotionally charged cases the two sides consider crucial to their respective interests -- for Israel, learning the fate of airman Ron Arad, missing for 18 years; and for Lebanon-based Hezbollah, winning freedom for a guerrilla who carried out a notorious attack 25 years ago.

As in similar swaps in the past, Israel is prepared to pay dearly for what it wants, giving up large numbers of prisoners in order to secure the freedom, or the remains, of a small number of Israelis.

Under the reported terms of the exchange, Israel is set to free about 400 Arab prisoners, including a pair of prominent Lebanese guerrilla leaders and scores of Palestinian militants, in return for a kidnapped Israeli businessman and the bodies of three Israeli soldiers.

Israeli media accounts, German mediator Ernst Uhrlau and a lawyer for two of the Lebanese prisoners, Zvi Rish, all said the swap would take place within a week. But the exchange has been reported several times in recent months as imminent, only to be delayed by fresh disagreements.

In Israel, the issue has proved extremely divisive. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s Cabinet endorsed the outlines of the exchange in November by the narrowest possible margin, and only after bitter debate.

In a terse statement issued late Saturday, the Foreign Ministry confirmed that “an arrangement has been concluded” regarding kidnapped businessman Elhanan Tannenbaum and three Israeli soldiers seized by Hezbollah in an October 2000 clash near the Israeli-Lebanese border.

Tannenbaum, a colonel in the Israeli military reserves, disappeared more than three years ago in the United Arab Emirates and, under still-murky circumstances, wound up in Hezbollah’s hands.

The three soldiers -- Sgt. Adi Avitan, Sgt. Benjamin Avraham and Sgt. Maj. Omar Souad -- were said to have been gravely wounded in a firefight before being dragged off by Hezbollah fighters. Rabbinical and military authorities declared them dead last year on the basis of what they described as conclusive intelligence information, but the families continued to voice hope they were alive.

On Saturday, however, they appeared to accept the inevitable, saying the return of their loved ones’ remains would give them some peace of mind.

“Only once this has happened will our feelings be at rest -- then we will be able to say it’s over,” Yaacov Avitan, Adi Avitan’s father, told Israel Radio.

According to Rish, the lawyer, Israel will free two of the best-known and longest-held Lebanese guerrilla chieftains in its custody, Mustafa Dirani and Sheik Abdel Karim Obeid. Both were snatched by Israeli commandos inside Lebanese territory during the nearly two-decade-long Israeli occupation of south Lebanon -- Dirani in 1994 and Obeid in 1989.

The two sides still face difficult negotiations over Arad, the missing Israeli airman, and Samir Sami Kuntar, a Lebanese militant who led a commando raid in 1979 that killed four Israelis -- including a father and two of his children -- in the northern town of Nahariya.

Arad, whose plane was shot down over Lebanon in 1986, has become an icon among Israeli forces missing in action and an international cause celebre.

Although there have been no reports of a live sighting since 1988, no Israeli leader has ever publicly said Arad is believed to be dead, and supporters of the family have exerted heavy pressure on successive Israeli governments to resolve the case.

At the time of the Cabinet vote on the prisoner exchange, Arad family members lobbied furiously against the release of Dirani, who was alleged to have initially acted as Arad’s captor and was thought by the family to be an important bargaining chip in learning what happened to the airman.

Hezbollah, for its part, has made its chief demand the release of Kuntar -- something that Israel until now has ruled out, citing “blood on his hands.” But in Saturday’s announcement, the Israeli government said explicitly for the first time that he would be freed if Israel received “concrete proof” of Arad’s fate.

Another complication of the current swap is that Tannenbaum was reported by Israeli media to have been involved in various illicit business dealings, some drug-related, at the time of his capture. That led detractors to question whether securing his freedom should be a higher priority than resolving Arad’s case.

Tannenbaum’s family and supporters, however, pointed to Israeli intelligence reports indicating that he had been tortured by Hezbollah and that his health was very poor, saying that lent greater urgency to obtaining his release.