Last update - 00:00 23/02/2008
Abducted IDF soldier's brother: We're afraid he'll be next Ron Arad
By Haaretz Service
The brother of abducted Israel Defense Forces soldier Eldad Regev said Saturday he is worried that his brother could become the next Ron Arad, an Israel Air Force navigator who has been missing since he was captured when his plane went down over Lebanon in 1986.
"We are worried and concerned that we will reach the situation of Ron Arad's family," Eyal Regev said during a cultural event at Kibbutz Yitzhak. "With the passage of time the concern grows, but we hope and believe that the two will return soon."
Regev was abducted along with fellow IDF reservist Ehud (Udi) Goldwasser by Hezbollah on July 12, 2006, in a cross-border raid that sparked the Second Lebanon War.
Eyal Regev also expressed hope that the assassination of Hezbollah terror chief Imad Mughniyeh in Damascus last week would lead to a breakthrough and accelerated talks on a prisoner exchange that would secure the soldiers' release.
Regev added that the Winograd Committee's report on the war failed to address his questions and concerns. "Why wasn't it possible to use [Security Council] Resolution 1701 to bring about progress, [the soldiers'] release or a change [in their situation]?"
"We would have returned the captives, but that wasn't done," he said. "Israel was in a position of strength prior to the end of the war and could have stuck to its demand for a framework for transferring Udi and Eldad to the Red Cross, or to the Lebanese government. That would have made it easier to bring them home. That was possible and it wasn't done."
Regev was also asked to respond to a report published in the German weekly Der Spiegel according to which Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is considering declaring the two abducted soldiers dead.
"Olmert denied the report," said Regev. "We are in touch with everyone we can, and there is no concrete information that could lead to such a declaration.
"From the day of the abduction there were all kinds of statements being made regarding their health," he added. "We were told Eldad was in moderate to serious condition, and since then we have not received any other information."
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