Iran's embassy in Lebanon said on Thursday that four Iranian diplomats, seized in 1982 by a Christian militia in Lebanon, are still alive and being held in Israel.

The embassy made the statement to mark the 26th anniversary of their kidnapping, and said the information was based on statements by former detainees released from Israeli prisons.

It also comes at a time that the Jewish state is due to provide details on the case as part of an agreement being hammered out on an exchange of prisoners with Hizbullah.

"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.

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.

Raed Mousavi, son of one of the missing diplomats, said: "Documents and testimonies by detainees in Israeli prisons, and the fact that Israel has not published any documents proving their martyrdom, shows our loved ones are still alive."

The Lebanese Forces which detained the four at a checkpoint, maintains that they died in Lebanon.

Israel is due to provide details of their fate to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon as part of an exchange deal involving Israeli soldiers seized by Hizbullah and Lebanese prisoners held by the Jewish state.

Hizbullah captured two Israeli soldiers, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, in July 2006, sparking a 34-day war in Lebanon.

On Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told the cabinet the two were dead, while Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on Wednesday said his group had not passed any details on their fate to the Israelis.(AFP-Naharnet)