Sept 3 (Reuters) – Israel will release five Lebanese citizens detained in southern Lebanon after finding they had no links to militant groups, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said on Thursday.
It said the decision came amid negotiations with Lebanon to recover the remains of Jewish community leaders kidnapped and killed there in the mid-1980s.
Israel and Lebanon have carried out several efforts in recent months to locate the remains, including operations on the ground, Netanyahu’s office said.
Israel has already released one of the five, Malek Kamal Ghazi, who was captured in October 2025 and handed over by the Red Cross to Lebanese authorities at the Naqoura crossing, a Lebanese security source and a source at the prisoners’ commission told Reuters.
The sources denied reports that Ghazi was a Hezbollah member and said the four others due to be released were also civilians. They said 35 Lebanese detainees remained in Israel, including 20 civilians.
Israel and Lebanon signed a U.S.-mediated framework agreement in June that included pledges to work towards the release of detainees and the search for and return of remains.
The agreement also envisages an eventual Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon as the Lebanese army takes control and disarms Iran-backed Hezbollah, terms the group has rejected.
(Reporting by Rami Ayyub in Jerusalem and Maya Gebeily in Beirut; Writing by Jana ChoukeirEditing by Tomasz Janowski and Ros Russell)
