Israel declares soldiers dead, approves swap

JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert last night declared two soldiers held by Lebanese militants to be dead before his cabinet voted overwhelmingly for an emotionally charged deal to swap their bodies for a notorious Lebanese prisoner.

Cabinet approved 22 votes to three the deal with Hezbollah, which has sparked a fierce public debate over whether Israel would be giving up too much, or carrying out its highest commitment to its soldiers to do everything possible to bring them home if they fell into enemy hands.

Hezbollah militants captured reserve sergeants Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev in a July 2006 cross-border raid that sparked a vicious 34-day war.

In return for their bodies, the cabinet agreed to release Samir Kantar, a Lebanese guerilla imprisoned for nearly 30 years for an attack remembered as one of the cruellest in the nation's history.

Hezbollah had offered no sign that the sergeants were alive, and the Red Cross was never allowed to see them.

Appealing to his cabinet to approve the deal, Mr Olmert said for the first time that Israel had concluded the two soldiers were dead, killed during the raid or shortly after.

"We know what happened to them," Mr Olmert said. "As far as we know, the soldiers Regev and Goldwasser are not alive."

Sergeant Goldwasser's father, Shlomo, said he was not surprised by the declaration, but wanted proof the soldiers were dead.

"They were alive when they were kidnapped and no one has provided us with evidence to the contrary," he said.

In exchange for their bodies, the cabinet was asked to agree to give up Kantar, who is serving multiple life terms for a 1979 infiltration attack on a northern Israeli town.

Kantar, then 16, shot Danny Haran in front of his four-year-old daughter, then smashed her skull with his rifle butt, killing her, too.

During the attack, Haran's wife accidentally smothered their two-year-old daughter in a frantic attempt to keep her quiet so Kantar and his comrades would not find them. Two Israeli policemen were also killed.

The cabinet debated the deal for nearly six hours. In addition to the bodies, Israel will receive a report of missing Israeli airman Ron Paul, whose plane crashed in Lebanon in 1986, and body parts of other Israeli soldiers.

In addition to Kantar, Lebanon will receive four imprisoned Hezbollah fighters, a dozen bodies -- most of them Hezbollah militants, and an unspecified number of Palestinian prisoners. Hezbollah had demanded the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.

Israel's military chief of staff, the head of the Mossad intelligence agency, the commander of the Shin Bet security service and other defence officials briefed ministers before the vote. The Mossad and Shin Bet chiefs opposed the deal, officials said.

Critics argued that swapping bodies for Kantar would offer militant groups a greater incentive to capture soldiers and less of a reason to keep captives alive.

In addition to sergeants Regev and Goldwasser, Israel is trying to win back a third soldier, tank corporal Gilad Shalit, captured by Palestinian Hamas militants in a June 2006 cross-border raid from the Gaza Strip.

Corporal Shalit has sent letters and an audio tape to his parents and is believed to be alive, though he has not been seen since his capture and the Red Cross has not been permitted to visit him.

Military chief Lieutenant General Gabi Ashkenazi had said he hoped the soldiers would return soon. The debate over whether to trade an infamous attacker for two soldiers believed to be dead taps into a military ethos that runs deep within Israeli society, where most young people perform compulsory service. Soldiers go out to battle with the understanding they will not be left in the field.

The controversy has weighed the immediacy of the Regev and Goldwasser families' anguish against the pain suffered by a family attacked nearly 30 years ago. The woman whose family was killed by Kantar, Smadar Haran Kaiser, has in the past opposed his release. Channel 10 TV reported that she gave her approval for thedeal.

"Today's discussion has special weight and is exceptionally sensitive in terms of its national and moral implications," Mr Olmert said before the meeting.