Gabriel Dwait, the Israeli whose body was handed over by Hezbollah in a swap Mon. (Reproduction)Haaretz - Oct 15, 2007
Israel and Hezbollah carried out their first swap since the Second Lebanon War on Monday, with Israel releasing a mentally ill Hezbollah guerrilla and the bodies of two others in exchange for the body of an Israeli civilian.
Sources in the Prime Minister's Bureau said Israel also received information regarding a separate issue, and that the information would be examined in the coming days.
The Lebanese media reported that the information pertained to the fate of captured Israel Air Force navigator Ron Arad, who went missing when his fighter jet went down over Lebanon in 1986.
Channel 2 TV identified the Israeli whose body was returned as Gabriel Dwait, a Jewish immigrant from Ethiopia, who drowned in the Mediterranean Sea on January 20, 2005. He was 27 at the time.
Several months ago, Hezbollah began transferring information according to which it held Dwait's body. Israeli authorities at the time were unaware of an additional Israeli body in Lebanon. The Abu Kabir Forensics Institute identified the Dwait's body at the border.
The Lebanese prisoner was identified as 50-year-old Hassan Naim Aqil, a former Hezbollah guerilla who did not fight in the Second Lebanon War. Israel decided to release Aqil, one of Hezbollah men it holds, due to his age and poor health. The bodies of the militants were identified as Ali Wizwaz and Mohammed Damasqiah.
According to a Lebanese security source, the Hezbollah militants were killed in the Second Lebanon War.
"As a goodwill gesture, there will be a swap of a prisoner and the bodies of two Hezbollah fighters for the remains of an Israeli who was not a soldier," the source said.
Israeli security sources also called the exchange a confidence-building measure, aimed at improving the atmosphere ahead or a future prisoner exchange with Lebanon.
A large Hezbollah convoy, with an ambulance carrying the remains of the Israeli, arrived at Naqoura town on the Lebanese side of the border with Israel at around 5 P.M. to complete the swap, sources and witnesses said.
The exchange was not covered live by local media, as the military censor had imposed a day-long blackout.
"I'm very proud of my son who gave up his life for his nation," Hussein Wizwaz, father of one of the two militants, told Reuters as he and relatives of other Lebanese prisoners waited at the border.
Israel and Hezbollah have in recent months been conducting negotiations aimed at securing the release of captured Israel Defense Forces reservists Eldad Regev and Ehud (Udi) Goldwasser, whose abduction on July 12, 2006 sparked the Second Lebanon War.
The negotiations are being conducted through United Nations-appointed German mediator Ernst Uhrlau. The major sticking point currently in the talks is Hezbollah's demand that Israel first release a large number of prisoners in exchange for information on the two trips, while Israel is insisting that the exchange be carried out in a single stage.
Shlomo Goldwasser, the father of Ehud Goldwasser, told Haaretz that he was aware of the developments, stressing that they "are not directly connected to our son and the abducted soldier Eldad Regev."
The Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar reported Friday that a prisoner exchange between the sides could be carried out in the near future, given the release of an Iranian prisoner held in Germany last week.
Last week, Germany announced its intention to free Kazem Darabi, an Iranian who was to be released in exchange for information on Arad under the terms of a prisoner exchange deal between Israel and Hezbollah in 2004.
Several IDF soldiers have been missing in Lebanon since the 1980s and are presumed dead. But there had been no previous report that an Israeli civilian was missing.
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