JERUSALEM - A senior Israeli lawmaker said Thursday that Israel had no knowledge of Hezbollah claims that the Lebanese militia is holding the remains of Israeli troops killed in Lebanon.

In a televised interview, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said his group was holding the remains of Israeli soldiers killed in Israel's war against Hezbollah in 2006. He also alleged that Israel is dragging its feet in prisoner swap negotiations to free two captured Israeli soldiers.

"There are body parts left behind by the Israelis of their soldiers on southern Lebanese territory," Nasrallah said in an interview with the private Lebanese NBN television broadcast Wednesday night. "We offered during the negotiations to return them but the Israeli side was not interested in this issue."

According to Israeli authorities, 119 soldiers died in combat during the 34 days of fighting, which erupted July 12, 2006 when Hezbollah guerrillas snatched the two soldiers from the Israeli side of the border with Lebanon.

"We have no knowledge of such a thing," Ephraim Sneh, a member of parliament's influential Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee told Israel Radio of Nasrallah's claim that he sought to trade for the soldiers' remains.

Israel is thought to be holding at least seven Lebanese prisoners.

In October Israel traded a Hezbollah captive and the bodies of two Lebanese fighters for the body of an Israeli civilian drowned off Israel's coast and washed ashore in Lebanon.

In Wednesday's interview, Nasrallah said U.N.-mediated negotiations to swap the Lebanese captives for the two Israeli soldiers were still going on and he expected that within three weeks it would be clearer it those talks would bear fruit.

An Israeli government official said it was policy not to comment on efforts to free the men, given the sensitivity of the issue. -AP