Report: German mediator assumes Israelis held by Hezbollah are dead

May 30, 2008, 7:15 GMT

Tel Aviv - The German mediator negotiating a prisoner swap between Israel and the Lebanese Hezbollah movement assumes the two Israeli soldiers held by the Iranian-backed group are no longer alive, the Israeli Yediot Ahronot daily reported Friday morning.

Gerhard Konrad told the Israeli government several weeks ago that he believed Hezbollah was not holding any live soldiers, only dead bodies, the report said.

Hezbollah snatched the two soldiers, Ehud (Udi) Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, in a July 2006 cross-border raid, which sparked the 33-day war between Israel and the Lebanese guerrillas.

The war ended without Israel securing the release of the two, who have not been heard from since they were taken.

Goldwasser's wife Karnit was quoted in the Israeli daily as saying that 'I understand the situation, after not receiving a sign of life from Udi for two years.'

His mother, Mickey, said that 'I spoke with a very senior official just this morning, voicing my frustration and concerns to him, and he did not say a word to me about this. It is hard for me to take this in.'

'We do not know anything about this. No government or army representative informed us about the condition of our sons or what the German mediator allegedly said. I pray that this is only an unfounded assessment. From my perspective as a father, Eldad is alive,' Regev's father, Zvi, said.

According to media reports this week, Israel has agreed to release Lebanese prisoners, including Samir Kantar, a Lebanese militant jailed for killing a father and his daughter in a 1979 infiltration into the northern Israeli coastal town of Nahariya, Nassim Nasser, an Israeli citizen jailed for espionage on Hezbollah's behalf and four other Hezbollah fighters captured in the 2006 war.

The deal reportedly would also include the bodies of 10 Lebanese held by Israel.

Nasser is to be released Sunday, sources said, and Israel has denied this move is part of any prisoner exchange.

The media reports were fuelled by a speech Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah gave Monday, in which he said that Lebanese prisoners held in Israeli jails would soon return home.

'Samir Kantar and his brothers will soon be home among their families,' he said in remarks to commemorate the eighth anniversary of Israel's withdrawal from southern Lebanon in May 2000.

A senior Israeli official confirmed Tuesday that progress has been made in indirect talks with Hezbollah, but cautioned that no agreement had been reached.