Olmert: We paid a bearable price in swap deal

The narrow window opened to the public Monday evening for just a moment proves that the State of Israel will not for one moment drop the efforts to find out what happened to its sons and return them to their families, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Tuesday morning in a first public response to the exchange deal carried out with Hizbullah on Monday.

"For years our enemies have been trying to raise the prices paid by Israel for pieces of information – and moreover for receiving kidnapped soldiers and citizens or, God forbid, bodies," Olmert said during a conference on immigration and absorption in the city of Ashdod. 

"This is an ugly and cynical trade in the feelings and sensitivity of the Israeli society. Sometimes we have no choice but to pay heavy prices. I believe, however, that yesterday's move was carried out in a balanced manner and with a price the State of Israel can bear."

The prime minister added, "Not one day passes in which the issue of returning the kidnapped soldiers in the south and in the north is not on my agenda. I do my best to update the sons' families on any development on this issue and I meet with them often.

"Many citizens have asked when will the sons return, and were right to ask this. There are those who ask this in the bottom of their hearts, there are those who ask this out loud and there are those who scream this on every street."

Olmert promised to continue with the "all-embracing" efforts to return the kidnapped soldiers.

"Yesterday we went through a certain stage in the process. Unfortunately, however, the road leading to the return of Udi (Ehud Goldwasser) and Eldad (Regev) in the north and Gilad (Shalit) in the south is still long. My heart is with the Goldwasser, Regev and Shalit families and with the (Ron) Arad family," he said.

Long months of negotiations

The negotiations for the completion of the initial deal carried out Monday between Israel and Hizbullah was held for many months. On Monday, Israel received the body of Gabriel Dwair, who drowned in the Mediterranean Sea in January 2005 and whose body was swept to the Lebanon shores, while the Lebanese side received a Hizbullah prisoner and the bodies of two slain group fighters.

The initial information that Hizbullah held Dwait's body was received from Lebanon several months ago. According to the information, Lebanese fishermen pulled the body out of the sea and handed it over to Hizbullah. Only after Israel received documents identifying Dwait, the Jewish state decided to advance the deal.

Following long negotiations, which included multiple trips to Germany by the prime minister's top hostage negotiator Ofer Dekel, the deal was agreed upon with the help of a German negotiator on behalf of the United Nations.  

The Israeli condition for the deal was additional information on the IDF soldiers missing in Lebanon. The Prime Minister's Office issued an official statement on additional information received by Israel regarding a different affair. According to Lebanese media outlets, the information addresses the fate of missing IAF navigator Ron Arad.

Tuesday marked 21 years since Ron Arad was taken hostage. Arad's daughter Yuval and brother Chen are currently visiting Berlin in an effort to convince top German officials not to release Iranian intelligence Kazem Darabi, who serves as a bargaining chip for information on the missing navigator's fate.

Lebanese newspaper al-Akhbar reported Tuesday that Israel received documents written by Arad and that these documents prompted the Arad family to leave for Berlin. The documents were written by the navigator shortly after he was taken hostage, the report said.