Prisoner Exchanges

The Israeli Cabinet's approval Sunday of a prisoner swap with the militant group Hezbollah touched off cries of victory in Lebanon and sparked fresh debate within the Jewish state over the price of its determination to retrieve missing soldiers. After weeks of emotional public speculation and a six-hour Cabinet debate, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's government voted 22 to 3 in favor of a deal that would return two captured Israeli soldiers. Olmert acknowledged Sunday that they were probably dead.

Closing an uneasy chapter of its 2006 war against Lebanon's Hezbollah guerrillas, Israel prepared to swap the most notorious Lebanese convict in its prisons today for the remains of two Israeli soldiers whose capture sparked the fighting. The deal, approved by Israel's Cabinet on Tuesday, revived raw emotions on both sides of the 34-day conflict: Israel's frustration over its failure to crush an Arab foe and Hezbollah's euphoria in holding off a powerful army until a U.N.-brokered truce.

Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah on Wednesday warmly welcomed the five Lebanese men who were released from Israeli custody in exchange for the bodies of two Israeli soldiers. Nasrallah embraced Samir Kuntar, the most notorious Lebanese convict held by Israel, who was returning to Lebanon after 29 years in jail. He then hugged the four other fighters released with Kuntar in a swap approved by Israel's Cabinet on Tuesday.

Rival Palestinian factions swapped hostages under a cease-fire deal. The internal Palestinian violence in the Gaza Strip had been the fiercest since the Islamic militant group Hamas, which rejects peace talks with Israel, trounced the more moderate Fatah faction in elections last year, triggering a Western aid embargo.

The government's exchange of five Taliban prisoners for a kidnapped Italian journalist last month appears to have touched off a spate of abductions, as some critics had feared. In the last two weeks, at least 13 Afghans and two French aid workers have been kidnapped in three incidents. The Taliban claims to be holding at least 10 of the hostages and has said it will free some only if more jailed Taliban are released.

President Alvaro Uribe on Monday began releasing 193 jailed rebels, including a leader who was kidnapped in Venezuela in 2004 and turned over to Colombian authorities. For nearly five years, Uribe had refused to swap any of the hundreds of guerrillas in Colombian prisons for the estimated 3,000 hostages held by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, and other groups.

A German engineer and four Afghans taken hostage in central Afghanistan in July have been freed in exchange for five imprisoned criminals, an Afghan official said. Local elders handed over Rudolf Blechschmidt and the four Afghans to officials from Afghanistan's intelligence service in Wardak province, said Mohammad Nahim, a district chief.

South Korea has proposed sending captured North Korean spies home in exchange for the release of South Korean citizens believed held in the communist North. The Seoul government accuses its Pyongyang counterpart of abducting and holding an estimated 486 South Koreans. It also accuses North Korea of holding 542 others taken prisoner during the 1950-53 Korean War.

At the top of the list of prisoners Hezbollah says it wants in exchange for two captured Israeli soldiers is Samir Kuntar, the Lebanese prisoner believed to be the longest-held in Israel. Family members in Beirut are hopeful that Israel will release Kuntar, who is serving multiple life sentences for murder and terrorism in Hadarim Prison for his role in a 1979 raid on a Jewish settlement that left four people dead, including a 4-year-old girl.

Pakistani authorities and Taliban militants exchanged dozens of prisoners, officials said. Pakistan army Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas said tribal elders mediating in the talks secured the release of seven security personnel. In return, authorities released 30 people detained in the Waziristan region near the Afghan border. Abbas described the 30 as "tribal people," but three Pakistani intelligence officials said they were suspected militants.