Israel, Hizbullah prisoner swop set for today

MIDDLE EAST:HIZBULLAH REGARDS today's German-mediated prisoner swap with Israel as a triumph, writes Michael Jansen.

The movement is set to hand over two Israeli soldiers, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, captured in a cross-border operation two years ago, in exchange for four Hizbullah fighters and Samir Kuntar, a Lebanese convicted of killing three Israelis in 1979.

The transfer is set to take place at the Naqoura border crossing on the coast between Lebanon and Israel.

The freed Lebanese will be driven to Beirut airport where they will be received by President Michel Suleiman and the prime minister Fouad Siniora.

Later they will attend a celebration in Hizbullah's south Beirut stronghold. Yesterday, al-Akhbar, a Lebanese daily, reported one of the Israelis had died during capture but did not identify him. Israel believes both are dead.

Hizbullah is eager to secure the release of its guerrillas - Maher Kourani, Khodor Zaidan, Muhammad Srour and Hussein Suleiman - as its military wing is recruited from poor Shia areas where family and community ties are strong.

In addition to the five Lebanese, Israel has agreed to free a number of Palestinians and to release the bodies of 199 Arab and Muslim fighters. Hizbullah insists on making the Palestinian connection so it can claim it is fighting for liberation of Palestine, the core Arab cause, as well as Lebanon.

Many Lebanese see Kuntar's return as a political victory over Israel which sentenced him to four life terms for killing an Israeli man, his daughter and a policeman during a guerrilla raid.

At 16, Kuntar, a Druze from the mountain village of Abey, joined the Palestine Liberation Front, notorious for hijacking an Italian cruise liner and killing a wheelchair-bound US Jewish citizen.

In 2003 Israel agreed to free 400 prisoners in exchange for an Israeli businessman and the bodies of three Israeli soldiers captured in 2000. When Hizbullah demanded the release of Kuntar as well, Israel agreed if the movement provided information on the fate of Ron Arad, an Israeli airman shot down over Lebanon in 1986 and believed dead. He was initially held by a Shia group but went missing. This week Hizbullah provided Israel with an Arad dossier which Israeli premier Ehud Olmert branded "insufficient".

Nevertheless, Israel's cabinet voted overwhelmingly in favour of the swap in expectation that Hamas might be encouraged to expedite an exchange of Palestinian prisoners for Gilad Shalit, another Israeli soldier seized in 2006.