News Brief

(IsraelNN.com) According to reports, during the Cabinet deliberations, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert urged the cabinet ministers to vote in favor of the exchange deal, declaring that he knew the two captive IDF soldiers Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev were dead. "The assumption all this time was that these people were alive...we know for certain that there is no chance of that, and that knowledge must be the basis for (yesterdays) decision," Olmert said. Until the meeting, PM Olmert had obscured his intentions regarding the vote.

"There is a fundamental difference between the knowledge we have regarding the fate of Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser and the fate of Ron Arad," Olmert said. "For more than 20 years after Arad's disappearance, we have not had confirmed information on what happened to him," he said.  As part of the deal, Israel will reportedly free Samir Kuntar, who in a previous deal in 2004 was to have been exchanged for information concerning the whereabouts and status of Ron Arad. The presently agreed-upon deal doesn’t include Ron Arad. 

The proposal to release prisoners in exchange for bodies has come under fire by intelligence services and other officials. Ministers were briefed by the Mossad and Israel Security Agency heads and by Ofer Dekel, Olmert’s appointee for MIA negotiations.