Rather, Israel did.

An Israeli raid during the 2006 war in Lebanon killed two Israeli soldiers held captive by Hezbollah, according to a senior aide to a Lebanese leader allied to the group.

Ali Hassan Khalil, who is now health minister and top aide to Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, wrote in his memoirs of the 34-day war being published by As-Safir daily in Beirut that news of the death of the two soldiers was relayed by senior Hezbollah official Hussein Khalil.

Hezbollah guerrillas captured the two soldiers in a cross border attack on July 12, 2006, with the aim of exchanging them for Lebanese and Arab prisoners held in Israel. Israel responded by launching a war against Hezbollah demanding the freeing of the soldiers and the disarming of Hezbollah.

The Jewish state failed to achieve its goals and had to exchange the remains of the soldiers with the last Lebanese prisoners it held two years later.

It had been assumed that the soldiers were killed in the original Hezbollah attack. Hezbollah never commented on the condition of the soldiers until it handed over their remains, and it never discussed the issue since.

But Khalil wrote in As-Safir Wednesday that he and Berri were holding a meeting with the Hezbollah official on August 3, 2006, to assess the developments of the war when he told them that the two soldiers had recently died as a result of an Israeli raid on an unidentified location.

 “There is another subject that is known to very few brothers who are directly linked to the issue and no one other than us will find out about it later,” Hussein Khalil was quoted as saying. “Israeli bombardment during the past few days have led to the death of the two Israeli captives… The brothers had taken all precautions to avoid something like this happening but the (Israeli) expansion of bombardment and the use of heavy rockets have led to this.”

Berri aide wrote that Hezbollah’s Khalil continued, saying: “What an irony…  Israel kills the captives that it declared war (to free) them. From our side as resistance, we will continue the battle of negotiations as if nothing has happened.”

The minister did not say why the allegation was not revealed earlier but described the incident as one of the biggest secrets of the 2006 war.

Given our enemies’ disdain of the truth and use of lying to achieve their goals, I am inclined to dismiss this as pure propaganda. Nevertheless, I look forward to the Israel’s response to this allegation.

Update: As I fully expected, the IDF Spokesperson has confirmed this is a blatant lie.

remarks made by Hezbollah rep were blatant lies & just another psychological warfare attempt by the terror org

Update: I totally beat the mainstream media to this story. Booya!

Again, I can only hope Israel was smart enough to have placed some poison in Kuntar’s food, to guarantee him a slow and painful death.

Note: Props to AP for publishing this photo. I am normally very critical of their (biased) coverage, so I am more than willing to acknowledge when they get it right.

Updates (Perth, Australia time):

11:19AM: You will find here some pictures of Kuntar and friends being processed for released.

Is it just me, or does Kuntar look like Adolph Hitler after sucking on some hydrogen?

11:45AM: The IDF believes Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah will leave his bunker and “make a special appearance to greet Samir Kuntar upon his arrival in Beirut.”

Here’s hoping this happens, and an IDF jet is there to help Kuntar and Nasrallah make a special appearance to greet Yasser Arafat and the other terrorists upon their arrival in hell.

12:22PM: Israel National News reports:

Palestinian Authority media, controlled by “moderate” PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, has hailed the release of Samir Kuntar, saying the man who crushed the skull of four-year-old Einat Haran in 1979 “epitomizes the ideal Palestinian prisoner.”

I couldn’t agree more.

And that, my friends, tells you everything you need to know about Israel’s “peace partner.”

12:30PM: Ha’aretz reports that Hassan Chicken Nasrallah will apparently not attend the prisoner reception in Lebanon after all.

1:50PM: As the Jerusalem Post reports, the Regev and Goldwasser families are still hopeful their sons are still alive.

2:05PM: The exchange was supposed to happen 5 minutes, but I haven’t seen anything. The Ha’aretz news ticker reports that the swap is to be delayed by one hour, citing Hezbollah`s Al-Manar TV.

2:15PM: The soldiers are reportedly now on the border, but there’s no report of their condition.

2:16PM: They’ve been transferred to the Red Cross.

2:45PM: 2 coffins have been laid out at the border crossing.

This is a sad day for Israel.

3:50PM: Ynet reports:

Cries of horror sounded at the Regev and Goldwasser homes Wednesday, as family members witnessed the TV broadcast of the prisoner exchange, in which the coffins of Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser were shown being turned over to the Red Cross.

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Eldad Regev’s aunt, Hanna, collapsed upon seeing the images of her nephew’s coffin and was attended to by Magen David Adom paramedics, which were standing by.

My heart goes out to the Regev and Goldwasser families.

4:31PM: Ma’an reports that the body of terrorist Dalal Al-Mughrabi was one of those to be returned in the swap, contrary to an earlier report from Israel’s Channel 10.

Actually, that’s only part of it, albeit the main part. In addition, Israel will receive a report regarding Ron Arad, and the remains of Israeli soldiers killed in the Second Lebanon War but never returned, while handing over four illegal Lebanese terrorists, the remains of dozens of infiltrators and terrorists (including eight Hizbulah fighters), and information regarding four missing Iranian diplomats. Did I mention we also have to release palestinian prisoners?

You can probably tell I am not impressed with this deal. In fact, with all due respect to the Goldwasser and Regev familes – whose suffering I could not even comprehend – the deal stinks. Assuming Ehud and Eldad are dead, we are essentially gaining their corpses and giving up one of the most brutal terrorists in recent memory. An unrepentant one at that.

Not only that, but this sets a very bad precedent. The terrorists now know we will pay an alarmingly high price, even for dead bodies. Which means if they capture live Israelis in future, gone is the deterrent to keep them alive.

No, this deal stinks. Unless, for example, we have secretly injected Kuntar with an agent that will kill him, but not before he spends much time in excruciating pain.