The New Nation - Internet Edition

AFP, Jerusalem

Israel signed an undertaking in front of UN officials on Monday to go ahead with a proposed prisoner swap with Shiite militant group Hezbollah, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's spokesman said.

"The Israeli pointman Ofer Dekel signed in the presence of the UN officials the arrangement proposed by the UN," spokesman Mark Regev said. Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah said last Wednesday that the proposed exchange would take place within two weeks.The Israeli cabinet approved the deal last month under which it is to release five Lebanese prisoners, the remains of Hezbollah fighters and an undetermined number of Palestinians in exchange for the bodies of soldiers Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev.

The pair were captured, badly wounded, by Hezbollah in a cross-border raid on July 12, 2006 that sparked a devastating 34-day war in Lebanon that killed more than 1,200 people in Lebanon, mostly civilians, and 160 Israelis, mostly soldiers.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told his cabinet the two soldiers were dead.

But Nasrallah said that "so far Hezbollah has not handed over any information about the fate of the two soldiers. Anything said in Israel is mere speculation.