Israeli soldiers held by Hezbollah badly injured: report

Dec 6, 2006, 18:23 GMT

Tel Aviv - The two Israeli soldiers, whose abduction by Hezbollah sparked a month-long war in Lebanon and Israel this summer, were badly wounded during the cross-border raid in which they were snatched, an Israeli investigation found.

The investigation was conducted by military, medical and ammunition experts, who wrote their conclusions in a report published Wednesday and presented to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Defence Minister Amir Peretz and Army Chief of Staff Dan Halutz.

According to the report, one of the soldiers was seriously injured and the other critically when Hezbollah militants crossed over Israel's northern border and snatched them as they patrolled the border.

An army spokeswoman said Israel was still assuming the soldiers were alive.

'The working assumption of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) was and still is that the soldiers are still alive and according to this assumption the IDF continues with its actions and efforts to return the soldiers home, as was done since the moment of the abduction,' she told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

Their kidnapping on July 12 prompted Israel to launch a huge offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon, while the Shiite militant movement launched thousands of rockets into Israel. The fighting came to an end with a United Nations-brokered ceasefire on August 14.