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| Syria-Lebanon-Iran |
| Israel denies it believes troops captured by Hezbollah are dead |
| 2007-10-12 |
| Israel on Thursday denied a report that claimed it believes Israel Defense Forces soldiers Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev were killed during their abduction by Hezbollah last year. Jerusalem said there was no change in its assumption that the two soldiers whose kidnapping by the Lebanese Islamic group sparked the Second Lebanon War were still alive. Earlier Thursday, the London-based Arabic-language newspaper al-Hayat quoted a French diplomatic source as saying Israel believes Goldwasser and Regev had died from wounds incurred in the cross-border attack. Israel believes Hezbollah's refusal to allow visits to the soldiers were a "maneuver" to hide their fate, al-Hayat's sources said. According to an IDF report published in December, tests carried out at the site of the cross-border attack show the two soldiers were hurt at the time of their kidnapping -one seriously and the other critically. Army officials refused to identify which of the two they believe was more badly wounded. The French source also touched upon Israel's strike in Syria and said that Western military intelligence sources have confirmed its target was a North Korean nuclear instillation. British army radars located in Cyprus picked up the signatures of the Israeli aircraft en route to their targets, the source said. Israel has remained silent on the strike in order not to destabilize the Syrian government, he added. |
| Posted by:Fred |