Lebanese newspaper: Ron Arad's bones examined by Israel
By Yoav Stern and Yossi Melman, Haaretz Correspondents, and Haaretz Service
The Lebanese daily newspaper Al Mustaqbal reported Thursday that bones said to belong to Israeli airman Ron Arad have been transferred to Israel for examination.
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The report comes a day after the London-based Arab newspaper Al-Sharq al-Awsat said that Arad's grave has been found by Hezbollah in Lebanon.
In response to the earlier report Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's communications adviser, Assi Shariv said Wednesday night that Israel had not received any new information about Arad, who has been missing since he bailed out from his plane over Lebanon in 1986.
"To the best of our knowledge, the Germans, who have been mediating in this matter, have also received no information or details that would attest to Ron Arad's fate," Shariv said.
There has been no initial Israeli response to the new reports from Lebanon, that Arad's bones had been transferred to Israel.
Lebanese sources in Beirut said on Thursday that Lebanon and Germany are currently awaiting Israel's response to the reported transfer of remains. They said that should tests prove positive, the second phase of the POW exchange agreement will get underway,
According to the report, the second phase will include the release of Samir Kuntar in exchange for Arad's remains. At a later phase, Israel will release Israeli-Arab prisoners and provide further details on the fate of the four Iranian diplomats who disappeared in Lebanon in 1982.
In exchange Israel would also give the Hezbollah the bodies of the three IDF soldiers killed in the Sultan Ya'akoub battle. "The atmosphere is currently positive, but a timetable hasn't been set for completion of the exchange deal," the report said.
Arad's grave said located On Wednesday, the London based Al-Sharq al-Awsat newspaper said that Arad's grave had been located in Nabi Sheit, west of Beirut, following intensive searches by Hezbollah over the last two months, and that a bone from the body buried there had been given to German mediator Ernst Uhrlau for tests to determine whether it really belongs to Arad. The article added that Hezbollah expects an answer to this question from Israel by the end of the week.
Although Israel has not acknowledged these developments, contacts with the German mediator are continuing, and "there have been some developments" in recent weeks - namely, the fact that Hezbollah appears to be making serious efforts to obtain information about Arad, said government officials.
Over the last few weeks, several Lebanese media outlets have run stories attributed to Hezbollah sources that said that information regarding Arad had been uncovered. This spate of reports is seen as being tied to this week's elections in Lebanon.
Israel has promised to release jailed Lebanese terrorist Samir Kuntar in exchange for substantive information on Arad's fate. Kuntar took part in a 1974 terror attack in northern Israel that left four Israelis dead.
Israel may free additional Arab prisoners for the return of Arad or his body. Hezbollah, according to these sources, wants to be seen as making progress in the battle for the release of Kuntar and other Arabs imprisoned in Israel to improve its electoral chances.
Rumors that Arad had been held and eventually killed in Nabi Sheit have been circulating in Lebanon since the late 1980s. Israel, however, believes that Arad was sold to Iran's Revolutionary Guards by his Lebanese captors while still alive, and Israeli intelligence and defense officials said that another purpose of the recent spate of media reports is to try to remove Iran from the picture. Iran is Hezbollah's patron, but Israel believes that it will not give Hezbollah any information on Arad unless it can plausibly deny any involvement in the affair.
The Al-Sharq al-Awsat report said that Arad was killed by his captors in 1988 in retaliation for an Israel Defense Forces operation in Lebanon that killed 18 Lebanese fighters, including relatives of Arad's guards. Throughout the ensuing years, the report continued, Hezbollah was unable to locate these guards, "for reasons that are unclear," but it finally did so last week.
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