Beirut - Iran's embassy in Lebanon said Thursday its four citizens seized in 1982 by a Christian militia in Lebanon are alive and being held in Israel. The embassy made its statement to mark the 26th anniversary of their kidnapping, and said the information was based on statements made by former detainees who were released from Israeli prisons.
The statement came a day after the leader of the Shiite Hezbollah movement Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah declared that he was accepting a swap deal with Israel.
"Our brother diplomats kidnapped in 1982 during the Zionist invasion of Lebanon are still detained in Israel, and all news which has been provided to us proves it," said charge d'affaires Mojtaba Ferdowsi-Pour in a statement.
Israel at the time was carrying out a major military operation in Lebanon when three diplomats - Mohsen Mousavi, Ahmad Motevaselian and Taghi Rastegar Moghadam - disappeared, along with Kazem Akhaven, a photographer with Iran's official IRNA news agency.
The Lebanese Forces militia which detained the four at a checkpoint in northern Lebanon has said on several occasions that they were killed in Lebanon.
Israel is due to provide details of the fate of the four diplomats to UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon as part of an exchange deal involving Israeli soldiers seized by Hezbollah and Lebanese prisoners held by the Jewish state.
Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, in July 2006, sparking a 33-day conflict in Lebanon.
Nasrallah confirmed his group would hand over two captured Israeli soldiers and information on a missing Israeli airman, Ron Arad, in exchange for five Lebanese prisoners held in Israel.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Sunday that he believed Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev were dead, but Nasrallah called such comments speculation.
All the Lebanese prisoners to be freed by Israel are alive.
