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Hezbollah hands over Israeli remains

Lebanese prisoners, from left to right, Maher Kurani, Mohammed Sarur, Samir Kantar, Hussein Suleiman and Khaled Zidan line up as an Israeli prison guard processes them for release at the Hadarim Prison, Israel, yesterday. PHOTO: AFP

Hezbollah handed over two black coffins yesterday it said contained the remains of two Israeli soldiers seized two years ago, in a prisoner swap greeted with triumph in Lebanon but anguish in Israel.

“Today we hand over Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev,” Hezbollah official Wafiq Safa said at the Naqura border crossing between Lebanon and Israel as men placed the caskets on the ground amid a crowd of onlookers.

“Despite the war that was waged against us and despite international pressure to reveal the fate of the two Israeli soldiers, no one has known their fate until this moment,” he said.

The mood in Israel has been somber as it waited to learn the fate of Goldwasser and Regev, whose capture in a deadly cross-border raid by Hezbollah guerrillas in July 2006 triggered a devastating 34-day war in Lebanon.

The bodies were handed over to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) for DNA tests to confirm their identities. The Israeli army was preparing for military funerals today in the soldiers’ home villages once their identities were confirmed.

Hezbollah members hand over black coffins believed to contain the remains of two Israeli soldiers to the Red Cross to be exchanged for Lebanese prisoners held by Israel at the Naqura border point with Israel yesterday. PHOTO: AP

The ICRC said it has handed to Hezbollah the bodies of eight fighters, including a woman Palestinian regarded by Arabs as a resistance heroine, as part of the next phase of the exchange, which also involves the release of a Lebanese killer who is the longest serving Arab prisoner in Israel.

Goldwasser’s family broke down when they saw the footage of Hezbollah handing over the two caskets, while neighbors gathered around the Regev home, lighting candles and quietly shedding tears.

“Eldad! Eldad! What have they done to you?” his aunt Hana cried.

Many in Israel question whether the nation is paying too high a price for the return of the soldiers, saying the swap risks bolstering its arch-foes in the region.

Lebanon was preparing a hero’s welcome yesterday, with a red carpet ceremony in Naqura, where patriotic songs and excerpts of speeches by Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah bellowed from loudspeakers and roads were festooned with celebratory banners and Hezbollah and Lebanese flags.

“Lebanon is shedding tears of joy,” said one banner at the border, where about 200 people were waiting to welcome home loved ones or receive their remains. “Israel is shedding tears of pain.”

Among those being exchanged is Samir Kantar, who was sentenced to five life terms for a 1979 triple murder, including a child, that shocked Israel to the core.

Four Hezbollah fighters captured in the July-August 2006 war which killed more than 1,200 people in Lebanon and 160 in Israel — Khaled Zidan, Maher Kurani, Mohammed Sarur and Hussein Suleiman — are also to walk free.

Israel is also to transfer to Lebanon the remains of 199 Palestinian and Hezbollah fighters exhumed over the past week. Among the eight already handed over is Dalal al-Moghrabi, who led a bloody commando attack in 1978 that Israelis describe as the “Coastal Road Massacre.” She was killed in a battle with Israeli forces after her group blew up a bus they had hijacked, killing 36 people.

The UN-brokered swap, which was given final approval by the Israeli Cabinet on Tuesday, is the eighth between Israel and the Hezbollah since 1991.

The Jerusalem Post billed the festivities in Lebanon, where the released men are to be flown to Beirut to be greeted by Lebanese President Michel Sleiman and Prime Minister Fuad Siniora, as “a celebration of evil.”
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