Hezbollah leader pledges to bring home prisoners
Hezbollah’s leader today pledged to bring home all prisoners held by Israel and said he expected to hear from a German mediator in the next three days on the proposed swap of prisoners and bodies with the Jewish state.
Sheik Hassan Nasrallah also said for the first time his group was coordinating with the Lebanese government on the prisoner swap deal with Israel.
Israel’s Cabinet narrowly approved on Sunday a prisoner swap with Hezbollah.
Under the deal, the guerrilla group would release Israeli businessman Elhanan Tannenbaum and the bodies of three Israeli soldiers, all captured by Hezbollah in October 2000, in exchange for about 400 Palestinians and several dozen prisoners from Lebanon, Syria, Morocco, Sudan and Libya.
But the deal has became embroiled in a dispute over releasing Lebanese prisoner Samir Kantar, who is responsible for the deaths of an Israeli and his two children in a 1979 guerrilla operation in the Israeli coastal town of Nahariya.
Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom has ruled out freedom for Kantar.
Last Saturday, Nasrallah said the deal would not go through unless Kantar was among those freed.
Kantar, who was a member of a Palestinian guerrilla group when he embarked on the raid in Israel, is the longest-held Lebanese prisoner and is serving a 542-year sentence.
Nasrallah said in Beirut today he was waiting to hear from the Germans, who are expected to visit Beirut to discuss the prisoner swap with him in light of the Israeli government’s decision.
