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Hezbollah Terms Israel's Announcing Death of Kidnapped Soldiers as "Trick"
A leader of the Lebanese resistance group Hezbollah said on Friday that Israel's announcement of the death of three kidnapped Israeli soldiers was a trick, stressing the group would not provide information about them.
Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah said at a meeting in Beirut Friday afternoon that the announcement "was a trick of the Jewish country to provoke Hezbollah to release information on the fate of the soldiers," the official NNA news agency reported.
Israel Defense Forces (IDF) chief Rabbi Yisrael Weiss announced earlier in the day that the IDF has made a final determination that the three soldiers, Adi Avitan, Benny Avraham and Omar Suwad, have been in the status of death.
The three Israeli soldiers were kidnapped on October 7, 2000 when patrolling in the disputed area of Shebaa Farms on the Israel-Lebanon borders. Hezbollah ambushed the patrol team and seized them.
Nasrallah stressed that Hezbollah, or Party of God, will not reveal any information about the captives, saying that "Our stand on this issue has not changed, even after the suicide event in the U.S. on September 11."
"The only thing I can say is that we will not provide any information unless Israel agree to the swap condition," he added.
Hezbollah has demanded that Israel release its militants and Palestinians jailed in Israeli prisons in change for information about the kidnapped Israeli soldiers.
The International Red Cross and some European countries have made efforts as mediators between Israel and Hezbollah to reach a final swap deal, which seems to have failed so far.
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