BEIRUT (AFP) — A prisoner swap between Israel and Hezbollah is imminent, a Lebanese official said on Wednesday, with the Shiite group set to hand over two captured Israeli soldiers in exchange for several militants.
"Barring any last-minute obstacles we expect very soon Israel to return seven to 10 prisoners and the bodies of 10 Hezbollah fighters," the official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
He said the swap could take place in Germany, which has been acting as mediator between Israel and Hezbollah.
Hezbollah declined to comment but in May the head of the Shiite movement, Hassan Nasrallah, had pledged in a speech that prisoners held by Israel would soon walk free.
The possibility of an imminent release comes as Israel made new peace overtures to Beirut, almost two years after a devastating war in Lebanon between Israel and Hezbollah fighters.
"We favour direct, bilateral negotiations in which all issues of dispute are up for discussion," Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's spokesman Mark Regev told AFP in Jerusalem.
The Lebanese government rejected the offer for the second time since last week when Olmert hinted Israel would be interested in direct talks with Beirut.
"Lebanon's position is known and that there is no cause for bilateral negotiations with Israel," a statement from Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora's office said again on Wednesday.
Amid a flurry of diplomatic activity in the region, Israel resumed peace talks with Syria -- indirect negotiations under Turkish mediation -- last month after an eight-year freeze.
Israel and Hezbollah, which is backed by Damascus and Tehran, have also held indirect talks aimed at securing the release of two Israeli soldiers captured in July 2006 in a deadly cross-border raid that sparked the 34-day war.
Hezbollah has refused to disclose whether the two soldiers, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, are alive or dead. Both were believed to be seriously wounded in the July 12 raid by Hezbollah guerrillas.
Olmert's special envoy for negotiations on the soldiers, Ofer Dekel, on Wednesday met their families "to brief them on the latest developments in the talks," a senior official said.
But another senior Israeli official involved in the talks said the swap "will not take place in the coming days."
Lebanese media have said that among those who could be released is Samir Kantar, currently serving a life sentence for killing two men and a four-year-old girl in a 1979 attack in northern Israel.
The two sides have carried out a series of exchanges of prisoners and remains over the years.
The last swap took place on June 1, with Israel freeing a convicted Hezbollah spy while the Shiite militant group handed over the remains of Israeli soldiers via the International Committee of the Red Cross.
In a speech in January 19, Nasrallah said Hezbollah had the "heads" and "body parts" of soldiers he said the Israeli army had abandoned on the battlefield.
Last October, Israel handed over a Hezbollah prisoner and the remains of two militants in return for the body of an Israeli and information on the fate of airman Ron Arad, missing since 1986.
Arad is believed to have been captured by the Shiite movement Amal of Lebanese parliament speaker Nabih Berri.
Israel refuses to declare Arad officially dead. In January 2006, Nasrallah said he was probably dead although he had no proof.
The largest prisoner swap took place in January 2004 when Israel released 400 Palestinians and 31 other people, including 23 Lebanese, in exchange for an Israeli reservist and the remains of three other Israeli soldiers.
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