Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, the two Israeli soldiers taken hostage by Hizbullah last summer, have been transferred to Iran, London-based Arab language newspaper al-Sharq al-Awsat reported Sunday.
According to the report, the captives were transferred to Iran shortly after the kidnapping in a special operation overseen by a senior Revolutionary Guard commander.
A source at the headquarters of Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told the newspaper that the planned release of an Iranian prisoner held In Germany could be related to a possible deal regarding the captives.
He claimed that as part of this German-Iranian deal, Germany would free Iranian intelligence officer Kazem Darabi, and in exchange the Israeli soldiers' remains would be handed over to Israel.
Last week, a French official told London-based al-Hayat that Israel was convinced that the soldiers were no longer alive. "Israel is convinced that the soldiers kidnapped by Hizbullah have been killed," the source told the paper.
Ehud Goldwasser's mother, Mickey, called the report "a spin".
"We hear these kind of things all the time. There is no corroborating evidence to these reports… we hope its just psychological warfare," she said.
Mickey said that the reports could be part of an Iranian attempt to "retaliate" for the humiliation President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad suffered at the UN General Assembly last week, after Ehud's wife Karnit lashed out at him.
She also expressed hope that Kazem's release was in no way related to the freeing of Israeli-German national Daniel Sharon from Lebanon Saturday. "I hope that such an important release was not carried out only in order to release a kid who has made a foolish mistake from jail."
Eyal Regev, Eldad's brother, told Ynet that the report was being looked into, adding that the state was committed to push on with efforts to free Eldad and Ehud, "regardless of whether they are being held by Hizbullah in Lebanon or by Iran."
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