Hizbullah has informed Israel through U.N. hostage negotiator Gerhard Konrad that missing Israeli navigator Ron Arad is dead, the Israeli daily Haaretz said Monday.
Haaretz reported that as part of the second stage of the prisoner swap agreement approved by the Israeli cabinet on Sunday, Hizbullah will hand over a report which is said to detail the organization's efforts to obtain information on Arad.

In exchange, Haaretz said, Israel will offer Hizbullah a report on the fate of four Iranian diplomats kidnapped during the Lebanon war in the 1980s.

Israel has previously said it does not know what happened to the diplomats, who were arrested in east Beirut in 1982 and are believed to have been subsequently executed and buried at a site where construction later obliterated their graves.

Haaretz said that according to the outlines of the Hizbullah report, Arad ejected from his plane in 1986 and was taken captive by the AMAL Movement of Speaker Nabih Berri.

It added that Konrad, who has seen the outline of the report but not the report itself, said his impression was that Hizbullah wanted to show it made a serious effort to find out what happened to Arad.

The report is said to contain numerous details on efforts Hizbullah made to ascertain Arad's fate, including the questioning of various individuals, Haaretz said.

But Israel also wants the report to explain how Hizbullah concluded that Arad was dead and why it cannot provide proof of what happened to him or locate his remains, the daily reported. 
 
 

Beirut, 30 Jun 08, 20:12