The United Nations (UN) has started work to try to secure the release of two Israeli soldiers kidnapped by Lebanese guerrilla group Hizbollah in July, a senior UN official said yesterday.

Deputy UN Secretary-General Mark Malloch Brown told Reuters in Abu Dhabi that a facilitator had been appointed to work for the release of the soldiers, whose kidnapping in a cross-border raid set off a 34-day war.

Last week, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Israel and Hizbollah had agreed to his appointment of an envoy to work on freeing the soldiers, and that this envoy?s identity would remain secret.

Lebanon has said the soldiers would not be released unless Israel was prepared to discuss a prisoner swap. Israel?s official position remains that it will not enter into negotiations to free the men, but political sources say the Jewish state would be willing to enter into talks if they were conducted through the Lebanesegovernment, not with Hizbollah.

The unconditional release of the soldiers is called for in the preamble to a UN Security Council resolution that brought about a ceasefire. The same preamble ?encourages? the settling of the issue of Lebanese prisoners detained in Israel.