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Israeli government approves swap of Hezbollah prisoner

The Israeli Cabinet overwhelmingly approved an emotionally charged deal yesterday to trade a Lebanese militant convicted in an infamous 1979 attack for two Israeli soldiers captured by Lebanon’s Hezbollah guerrilla group and believed to be dead.

The swap is due to take place today under UN auspices at a seaside border crossing.

Hezbollah has given no evidence that soldiers Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad 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.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told his Cabinet last month that Israel thinks the men did not survive.

The deal, approved in a 22-3 vote, reflects the country’s deep moral commitment to its soldiers that they will never be left behind in the field. It also will close a painful chapter from Israel’s inconclusive war against Hezbollah, which was sparked by the soldiers’ capture.

Zvi Regev, Eldad’s father, said he was holding out hope his son might still be alive.

“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.”

Critics have said that by trading bodies for prisoners, Israel is giving militants little incentive to keep captured soldiers alive.

And although polls suggest a large majority of Israelis support the exchange, many Israelis were anguished at the prospect that killer Samir Kantar would go free.

Kantar, then 16, was one of four militants who made their way in a rubber dinghy from Lebanon to Israel’s northern shore in 1979 and attacked an apartment building in the coastal city of Nahariya, 8km from the Lebanese border.

Smadar Haran, woken by the gunfire and grenades exploding outside the building, fled into a crawl space in her apartment with her two-year-old daughter and a neighbor. Her husband, Danny, grabbed their four-year-old daughter, Einat, hoping to dash outside to an underground bomb shelter, when the attackers burst into their home.

Danny and Einat were dragged down to the beach. Witnesses said Kantar shot Danny Haran in front of his child, then smashed her skull against a rock with his rifle butt, killing her, too. Kantar, who was recruited by a militant Palestinian faction, denies killing the girl and has never expressed remorse over the incident.

The younger child died, too: Her mother accidentally smothered her in a desperate attempt to silence her cries.

An Israeli policeman also died in the attack. His family petitioned Israel’s Supreme Court to block the prisoner swap, but the court rejected the petition. Smadar Haran and other family members have said they are devastated by the decision, though she recently said she understood it.

Israeli President Shimon Peres was expected to sign a document pardoning Kantar yesterday.

“It’s not a happy choice,” Peres said before the Cabinet vote.
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