BEIRUT, Lebanon, Nov. 10 (UPI) -- Hezbollah said Monday there will be no swap deal with Israel unless all Lebanese prisoners held in Israeli jails are liberated.
Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, leader of the Lebanon-based Islamic militant group, said "Hezbollah was sticking to its declared conditions" of swapping four Israelis for all Lebanese prisoners.
He was commenting on an Israeli cabinet decision to free Lebanese prisoners except those who have committed operations that killed Israelis.
Hezbollah insists on having them all liberated including the longest-held prisoner, Samir Kantar, who is sentenced to life in prison for carrying out an operation in the late 1970s in which many Israelis were killed.
"Our terms are clear and declared and we are attached to them," Nasrallah said.
Under the deal, Israel would free hundreds of Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners in return for Israeli businessman Elhanan Tannenbaum, who was kidnapped by the Hezbollah three years ago.
The deal, arranged with the help of German mediators, also includes the bodies of three Israeli soldiers who were kidnapped by Hezbollah in a cross-border operation in south Lebanon in October 2000.
