Karnit Goldwasser: Last chance to bring captive soldiers home
Cabinet to possibly vote on swap deal with Hizbullah Sunday. 'This feels like the final opportunity to release the captives,' Goldwasser's wife says. Barak: Our duty to bring soldiers back dead or alive
“There is a feeling that this is the last chance to bring back Udi and Eldad; if cabinet does not seize the opportunity (and vote in favor of a prisoner exchange deal with Hizbullah on Sunday), it may take years (before the captives are returned)," Karnit Goldwasser, wife of kidnapped IDF soldier Ehud Goldwasser said Saturday.
"If the deal falls through, I’m afraid we’ll have three more cases like Ron Arad," she said, referring to her husband, Eldad Regev and kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad Shalit.
Regev and Goldwasser were both kidnapped by Hizbullah gunmen during a cross-border raid on July 12, 2006. The incident sparked the Second Lebanon War.
In an interview with Israel's Channel 2, Goldwasser said, "We were never told there was a problem with (the release) Samir Kuntar (as part of the deal)."
Kuntar has been imprisoned in Israel for the past 29 years for murdering the Haran family members and two police officers during a terror attack on the northern city of Nahariya.
"We felt as though Ehud and Eldad were being brought to the fence and all of a sudden they pulled them back,” the captive soldier's wife said.
The release of Kuntar, the last bargaining chip to obtaining any information about MIA Navigator Ron Arad, may be a part of the deal.
According to Goldwasser, “Samir Kuntar has always existed on the table; we were never told there was any problem with Kuntar. Now the prime minister is telling us there’s a problem with him. He is giving reasons which I cannot accept.”
She also spoke of her difficult emotions during the past week, saying: “I was offended, but I was mostly offended on behalf of Udi. During the war, I felt as though the ground was being swept from under our feet, and Sunday brought the same feeling. There’s a sense in the government that we can solve the problem without paying a price.”
Earlier this week, Goldwasser met with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert . She said she was impressed by Olmert’s sincerity and willingness to bring the deal to a speedy ruling by the government. “He always told us that he - even more than us – wants to end this affair and bring them back home, and I believed him.”
In the meeting, the prime minister told Goldwasser that he intends to bring the deal – as outlined in the family briefing held last week with Ofer Dekel, the Prime Minister's Office's emissary heading Israel's efforts to have its missing and captive soldiers' returned – to the government’s decision as early as Sunday.
The Olmert-Goldwasser meeting took place after the IDF’s announcement that the Chief Military Rabbi had obtained intelligence material in order to determine the fate of the kidnapped soldiers. It was reported that he was considering declaring the troop "killed in action whose place of burial is unknown".
The kidnapped soldiers' families were outraged over the rabbi's involvement in the affair.
Also on Saturday, Defense Minister Ehud Barak met with Admiral Michael Mullen, head of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff. The two discussed a series of regional, political and security matters.
Barak said during the meeting that “as a soldier, former commander and defense minister I say that we have a moral responsibility to bring the soldiers back home, dead or alive.”
Roni Sofer contributed to the report
