ISRAEL:AFTER A six-hour deliberation, the Israeli government voted yesterday to approve a prisoner swap deal with Hizbullah whereby Israel will release five Lebanese prisoners, including one serving a life sentence for killing a father and his daughter three decades ago, in exchange for two Israeli soldiers seized by Hizbullah and who are believed dead.
The 22-3 vote in the cabinet in favour of the German-mediated deal is likely to set in motion a series of steps, including identification of the Israeli soldiers and culminating in an exchange that is expected to take place within 10 to 14 days.
During the cabinet debate, prime minister Ehud Olmert for the first time announced that the two soldiers, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, were dead.
"We know what happened to them," Mr Olmert told ministers, according to comments released by his office. "As far as we know, the soldiers . . . are not alive."
The two soldiers were abducted by Hizbullah during a cross-border raid two years ago in which three Israeli soldiers were also killed.
The attack was the prelude to a month of warfare between Israel and Hizbullah in which about 1,200 Lebanese and about 159 Israelis were killed.
As part of the deal, Israel will return four Hizbullah fighters captured during the fighting, the bodies of some 10 Hizbullah members killed during the clashes, and Samir Kuntar, the longest-serving Lebanese prisoner in Israel.
After infiltrating northern Israel in 1979 as part of a four-man cell, Kuntar killed a policeman and then shot 28-year-old Dani Haran and smashed the head of his four-year-old daughter with the butt of his rifle, killing her.
In an attempt to keep her hideout secret from Kuntar's group, which had entered their apartment, Haran's wife Yael accidentally suffocated her two-year-old daughter as she tried to stop her from crying. Kuntar was later given four life sentences.
The release of living Lebanese prisoners for dead Israeli soldiers has sparked some criticism in Israel.
Opponents of the deal say it will lessen the incentive to keep Israeli captives alive.
But supporters of the deal argued that Israel had a moral obligation to return captives, dead or alive, and that this was a vital message for Israeli soldiers being sent into battle. "I am the commander of everyone - of the living and of the dead," chief of staff Gabi Ashkenazi, who supported the deal, reportedly told ministers.
Israel yesterday reopened three border crossings into Gaza, renewing the flow of goods into the coastal strip.
It had closed the crossings last week after Palestinian militants fired several rockets into Israel, violating a truce that went into effect 10 days ago.