Text size
Comments (0)
Print Page
Send to friend
Share on Facebook
Share on Twitter
Share
this story is by
Yuval Azoulay The Associated Press
related tags
Hezbollah
prisoner exchange

Israel and Hezbollah are set to carry out a prisoner exchange on Wednesday in which five Lebanses prisoners and the remains of 199 Lebanese fighters will be returned to Lebanon in exchange for two Israel Defense Forces reservists held hostage by the Lebanese milita.

  • Late Tuesday: President Shimon Peres signed the pardon of Samir Kuntar, the notorious Lebanese terrorist who has been serving four life sentences in Israel for the murder of four Israelis in a 1979 terror attack in Nahariya.

  • Early Wednesday: Israel is scheduled to transfer the remains of 199 Hezbollah militants to Lebanon.

  • 9 a.m. Wednesday: Hezbollah will then transfer two IDF reservists, Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser, to Israel. The two were abducted by Hezbollah in a cross-border raid in July 2006. The soldiers, alive or dead, will be transferred by the Red Cross.

  • Later Wednesday: If Israel cannot identify the soldiers on site, their remains will be flown by helicopter to Jerusalem for an expedited DNA check. Israel estimates the test will be completed in about three hours.

  • Wednesday: If positive identification of the soldiers is completed, Israel will then transfer the five Lebanese prisoners from a community near the border to the Lebanese side to complete the deal. The prisoners will be dressed in Hezbollah uniforms and flown by helicopter to Beirut's Rafic Hariri International Airport, where they will be welcomed by the Lebanese president, chairman of the parliament and the prime minister.

  • While the exchange is underway, the families of Regev and Goldwasser will be waiting at the Shraga camp in the western Galilee. The IDF will let the families choose who they want to join them in the camp for the duration of the prisoner exchange.

    The IDF plans to move the returned hostages to the camp as soon as they are positively identified in order to allow their families to reunite with them away from the press.