ARABS-ISRAEL - Jan. 29 - Israel-Hizbollah Prisoner.

Under an agreement brokered by Germany, Israel releases to Hizbollah 400 Palestinian prisoners and 35 other Arabs, including 23 Lebanese. In return, Hizbollah releases Israeli businessman Elhanan Tannenbaum and the bodies of 3 dead Israeli soldiers - all captured in October 2000. Further talks are planned to secure the release of Lebanon's longest-held prisoner in Israel, Samir Kantar. Kantar has been in an Israeli prison since 1979 for killing 3 members of an Israeli family during a Palestinian militant raid into northern Israel. Kantar, who belonged to the Palestine Liberation Front, is serving a 542-year sentence. "Samir Kantar will be released as soon as the negotiations are finished within two or three months", said Hizbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on Jan. 25. Kantar's release has been a key Hizbollah demand, and Israel is believed to have regarded him as bargaining chip for information on Israeli air force officer Ron Arad. Nasrallah said that in the second stage, a committee would be formed to seek information on Arad and on four Iranian diplomats who disappeared in Lebanon in 1982 during the Israeli invasion. "Any positive development in the case of Ron Arad will open the way for the release of more Palestinians and Arabs", Nasrallah says. Sharon said he had been assured Hizbollah would make every effort to find out what happened to Arad, who was captured after his plane was shot down in 1986. Sharon added: "A system was decided on in which all the relevant sides will co-operate fully until we discover the fate of Ron Arad and he returns home - something we all hope will happen in the near future". Arad contacted his family in the first 2 years of his capture, but nothing was heard after 1988.