JERUSALEM (AFP) — Israel's cabinet was expected to give the final go-ahead on Tuesday for a prisoner swap with Hezbollah despite Prime Minister Ehud Olmert saying the Lebanese Shiite group did not fully keep its side of the bargain.
The deal is expected to see on Wednesday the release of five Lebanese prisoners, including the perpetrator of a brutal triple murder, in exchange for two soldiers captured by Hezbollah in deadly 2006 raid.
The cabinet first approved the deal in June, but was asked to back it a second time after Israel received a Hezbollah report on missing airman Ron Arad.
Arad's fate has been unknown since his plane was shot down over Lebanon in 1986, and although the report said he was most likely dead, Israel has rejected its findings.
The report was one of the conditions of the prisonere swap, but Olmert said on Monday that it was "completely inadequate."
However, Public Security Minister Avi Dichter said that despite the report's failure to shed new light on Arad's fate, the cabinet should approve the swap.
"We know exactly what we decided last time. I don't think we can take any other decision. The facts were known to us the last time and they haven't changed this time," Dichter told army radio.
"Anyone who is familiar with the facts knew very well that the Hezbollah report would not provide a conclusive answer on the fate of Ron Arad.
The swap, the eighth such deal between Israel and Hezbollah since 1991, stirred controversy over the decision to release Samir Kantar, a Lebanese militant who brutally killed three Israeli civilians, including a child, in a 1979 raid.
Israel will also transfer the bodies of 200 Lebanese and Palestinians.
"The issue of Ron Arad is an open wound that will not be solved through the release of Samir Kantar," Dichter said. "We will have to continue working in order to bring an answer to his family, the nation and the army."
Before the swap can take place, Israel's Supreme Court was also to hear several petitions against the move, which also still requires President Shimon Peres to pardon the five Lebanese prisoners.
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