(Adds Olmert comments paragraphs 11, 12) By Rami Amichai HADARIM PRISON, Israel, July 14 (Reuters) - Israel prepared on Monday for a prisoner swap with Hezbollah by moving four Lebanese guerrillas in its custody to a holding facility ahead of Wednesday's U.N.-mediated exchange. Maher Qorani, Mohammad Srour, Hussein Suleiman and Khodr Zeidan were transferred from Ashmoret prison, near the coastal city of Netanya, where they have been held since their capture in the 2006 Lebanon war, to Hadarim jail some 11 kilometres (7 miles) away, a Prisons Services spokesman said. There, they joined Samir Qantar, a Hadarim inmate who is also slated for release on Wednesday. Qantar, the most high-profile Lebanese prisoner in Israel, was jailed for life for killing a policeman, another man and his 4-year-old daughter in a raid in the northern Israeli town of Nahariya in 1979. In return for releasing the five men, Israel will recover two of its soldiers, captured in a cross-border raid that triggered the 34-day war with the Iranian-backed group two years ago. Hezbollah has given no word on the condition of the soldiers, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, although Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has said they are probably dead. Under the deal, negotiated by a German intelligence officer, Israel will also hand over the bodies of 200 Arabs killed while infiltrating northern Israel, and Hezbollah will return the remains of Israeli soldiers killed in south Lebanon in 2006. A van with darkened windows transported the four prisoners to Hadarim prison. At the facility, they and Qantar will undergo medical tests before being driven to the border crossing at Naqoura, on the Mediterranean coast, for Wednesday's exchange. PHOTOGRAPHS Olmert had described Qantar as the last bargaining chip for word on the fate of Israeli airman Ron Arad, who disappeared after bailing out during a bombing run on Lebanon in 1986. Critics of the current prisoner exchange deal have accused Olmert's government of abandoning any chance of recovering Arad. As part of the swap, Israel received a report on and previously unseen photos of the airman from Hezbollah, but there was no sign that the information had shed new light on his fate. Olmert told U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Monday that Hezbollah's report on Arad was "absolutely unsatisfactory," an Olmert aide told reporter in Paris where the prime minister attended France's annual Bastille Day military parade. It was not immediately clear whether the assessment would influence Israel's cabinet, which is expected to decide on Tuesday on whether to go ahead with the planned prisoner swap. Members of Arad's family have said achieving closure for the families of Goldwasser and Regev was paramount. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said it had been asked by both Israel and Hezbollah to arrange the exchange, due to begin around 9.00 a.m. (0600 GMT) on Wednesday. "The ICRC accepted to play this ... purely humanitarian role," Christian Cardon, an ICRC spokesman in Beirut said. The ICRC had readied 11 trucks to transport the 200 bodies from Israel to Lebanon, he added. Security sources in Lebanon said the released Lebanese would be flown from Naqoura to Beirut airport for an official reception. (Additional reporting by Tom Perry in Beirut; Writing by Avida Landau and Joseph Nasr; Editing by Matthew Jones)
Workers print posters of Samir Qantar, who is set to be released as part of a prisoner exchange with Israel on Wednesday, at a workshop in Tyre July 14, 2008. REUTERS/ ...
