Cabinet is expected to authorize Sunday the release of five Palestinians in the framework of the recent prisoner exchange deal with Hizbullah.
Mourning Period
Karnit Golwasser: Udi united Israeli society / Ahiya Raved
Family marks end of period of mourning over reservist whose body returned to Israel in prisoner exchange. 'You gave this nation what it needed – pride, determination and mostly a lot of love,' his father-in-law says during service
The release of the Palestinians would mark the conclusion of the deal, in which the bodies of IDF reservists Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev were returned from Lebanon about two weeks ago in exchange for Samir Kuntar, four Hizbullah gunmen and the remains of 199 slain Lebanese gunmen.
Regev and Goldwasser were captured by Hizbullah gunmen during a cross-border raid on July 12, 2006. The incident triggered the Second Lebanon War.
Prior to the swap it was agreed that the number of Palestinian prisoners included in the deal would be determined solely by the Israeli government, and it is estimated that the relatively low number of prisoners slated for release stems from the cabinet's dissatisfaction with Hizbullah's report on Ron Arad.
In the report the Shiite group said it had no additional information on the missing navigator's fate, but estimated that he was dead. Hizbullah also transferred two never-before-seen photos
of Arad and a journal he had kept. The photos were given to the Arad family.
Arad was captured by the Lebanese Shi'ite militia Amal on October 16, 1986 after bailing out of his damaged jet while on a mission to attack PLO targets near Sidon.
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