Nasrallah (L) and Sharon confirmed the deal

Occupied Jerusalem, January 25 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Hizbullah and Israel have reached late Saturday, January 24, a landmark prisoner swap agreement following nearly three years of on-again and off-again negotiations.

The German government, the chief mediator, Hizbullah and Israel all confirmed the deal, which will see the release of hundreds of prisoners in Israeli jails, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Under the agreement, Israel would release around 400 Palestinians as well as 34 Arab prisoners and a German in exchange for the release by Hizbullah of Israeli businessman Elhanan Tannenbaum and the bodies of three Israeli soldiers, said Ernst Uhrlau, the German mediator.

Zvi Rish, the Israeli lawyer representing the Lebanese prisoners told Israel 's private Channel 2 the swap was likely to take place next week.

"The deal is likely to happen on Wednesday or Thursday next week," Rish said, stressing it was only "the first stage" of the agreement.

Hizbullah confirmed the swap deal in a statement read over the party's Al-Manar television station.

"Hizbullah confirms the announcement made by the German mediator about an imminent prisoner swap with Israel , as well as the details that have been set out," said the statement.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said Sunday, January 25, the prisoner exchange deal was "ethical and responsible", army radio reported.

"The decision over the prisoner exchange deal was not an easy decision. I think we took the right, ethical and responsible decision," he said at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting.

The Washington Post said that an Israeli plane will take the Arab prisoners to Germany at the same time a Lebanese plane from Beirut arrives there with the Israeli businessman and the bodies of the soldiers. The Palestinian prisoners will be released in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

According to the official German list, those slated for release included 23 Lebanese nationals, five Syrians, three Moroccans, three Sudanese, a Libyan national and a German.

Israel would also return the corpses of 59 Lebanese nationals killed in action, it added.

Absent

Undated picture of Israeli "businessman" Elhanan Tannenbaum

However, Lebanon 's longest-serving prisoner Samir Kantar, in prison since 1979, is absent from the list as Israel refused to release him until it receives "substantial proof" on the fate of a missing airman.

"In exchange for the return of the kidnapped Israelis, Israel will release prisoners and detainees staying at detention centers in Israel and hand over Lebanese bodies," Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's office said in a statement, without specifying numbers.

"The Lebanese prisoner Samir Kantar will be released after Israel receives concrete proof as to the fate of Ron Arad," whose plane was shot down over Lebanon in 1986. 

Citing senior Israeli sources, Israeli Channel 2 said such proof would have to include "unequivocal evidence" of his fate, such DNA samples showing he was still alive, or other pathological evidence if he had died or been killed.

Months of German-brokered talks had been deadlocked over the fate of Kantar.

During the negotiations, Hizbullah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah insisted the exchange would not go ahead unless Israel released all Lebanese captives, including Kantar.

Among the other prisoners slated for release by Israel were Sheikh Abdel Karim Obeid and Mustafa Dirani, who were kidnapped by Israel in 1989 and 1994.

Dirani and Sheikh Obeid were kidnapped in Lebanon and held in exchange for news of Arad who was captured by the pro-Syrian Amal movement when Dirani was the movement's intelligence chief.

Tensions between Hizbullah and Israel ran high last week when an Israeli military bulldozer violated the U.N.-demarcated Blue Line and immediately destroyed by a Hizbullah missile.

It is the worst flare-up on the frontier since an Israeli air raid on an alleged Palestinian base in Syria in October 2003, the first attack on Syrian soil in three decades.