Two Israeli soldiers abducted by Lebanon's Hizballah terrorist militia last year are no longer living, a German official mediating between the two sides has revealed.

In an interview with the German weekly magazine Der Speigel, the unnamed middleman said that negotiations are currently focused on Hizballah's demand that Israel release jailed terrorist Samir Kuntar in exchange for the corpses of Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev.

Kuntar was captured with his terrorist cell in 1979 after they infiltrated northern Israel, killed a police officer and then proceeded to execute a four-year-old girl and her father in the most brutal fashion. Since then, Kuntar has become a national hero among many Lebanese.

Israel has all but admitted that Goldwasser and Regev are dead, having possibly suffered severe injuries in their July 2006 abduction, which sparked the 34-day Second Lebanon War.