Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, Yehuda Lancry, said on Thursday that the objects inspected by Israeli experts at the UN had only small amounts of blood on them, a sign that three Israeli captured at the occupied Shabaa Farms soldiers were still alive.
“It might be possible to find out new information through a thorough check of the video and the objects,” he was quoted by Haaretz as telling Israel Radio.
Following the Wednesday viewing of the videotape footage taken by UNIFIL peacekeeping troops of the scene following the October kidnapping of three soldiers, Lancry said that the tape did not shed new light on the condition of the soldiers.
Lancry made the comments shortly after a team of three Israeli defense experts viewed two videotapes of the scene hours after the Lebanese Hizbollah fighters abducted the soldiers.
The team also inspected several bloodstained articles found by the UNIFIL troops, according to an agreement reached between Israel and UN on Tuesday.
Lancry also said it was unclear whether the seven bloodstained articles actually belonged to the Israeli soldiers.
He also said that the items would be inspected again by a team of experts to be sent by Israel in the coming days.
"The objects that we saw need to be examined by experts," Lancry told the paper earlier.
"Blood tests need to be performed to determine if anything can be learned about the condition of the kidnapped soldiers."
Lancry said Israel agreed with a demand made by the soldiers' families that all 53 articles collected by UNIFIL troops be transferred to the families after they were examined.
Israel was only able to view the items after reaching a breakthrough agreement with the UN, said the paper.
Citing a report in Jane's Defense Review, Israel Radio said Israel was allowed to see the bloodstained items as a result of an agreement brokered with the help of the Indian government, whose troops were part of the UNIFIL force.
The report also cited growing defense and political cooperation between Delhi and Jerusalem, said the radio.
According to the agreement, the two videos were to be shown to the Israeli team and family members of the kidnapped soldiers at the UN headquarters in Vienna. Originally, the UN said Israel would only be permitted to view the footage once.
However, Haaretz quoted Lancry as saying Tuesday that a date would be set for at least one additional viewing in Vienna for the experts and the soldiers' relatives.
Israel at first refused to view an edited version of the tape because the UN said it would obscure the faces of the Hizbollah resistance fighters.
Israel changed its mind following Friday's release of a UN report revealing the existence of not just one, but three videotapes, as well as 53 items - seven of them bloodstained - that UN peacekeepers took from the vehicles before handing them over.
Lancry accepted UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's offer to view the two tapes in UN possession and the bloodstained items, earlier reports said.
UN peacekeepers were stationed in southern Lebanon after Israel's first invasion of the area in 1978. The peacekeeping force is now being scaled down following Israel's troop withdrawal in May 2000 – Albawaba.com
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