Monetary prize to be offered for information on MIA Arad

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon announced at Sunday's cabinet meeting that a new non-profit organization will be created to raise funds for a monetary prize to be awarded for information about the whereabouts of missing airman Ron Arad.

Sharon said he had been asked by leaders of the initiative to authorize the organization's activity.

Minister of National Infrastructures Eliezer Zandberg raised the issue at the cabinet meeting on the 18th anniversary of Arad's disappearance. He asked the government what was being done to further a solution.

Sharon replied that recent attempts to obtain information about Arad's whereabouts with Germany's help had been unsuccessful, but unless new information came in there would be no more prisoner deals.

Israeli officials last month denied a newspaper report which claimed progress had been made in talks over information on the fate of the missing Israel Air Force navigator.

The Oman-based Al-Watan daily reported that Hezbollah has recently released "new and credible information" on Arad under the terms of the second stage of the prisoner exchange deal with Israel.

A senior defense source noted that the key to the mystery of Arad's fate remained in the hands of Iran.

According to the January agreement with Hezbollah following the first stage of a prisoner swap, in exchange for information on Arad's fate, including DNA samples or " evidence" of his death, Israel will immediately release Samir Kuntar, whose terror group's 1979 attack in Nahariya left Dani Haran and his two daughters dead, as well as a policeman killed in a shootout.

In exchange for Arad's remains, Israel will free Palestinian, Lebanese, and other prisoners in Israeli jails, Germany will release an Iranian and a Lebanese prisoner involved in the murder of an Iranian dissident, and others will be released by France and Switzerland.

	Ron Arad has been missing since his plane went down over Lebanon in October 1986. (Archive)