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Hezbollah, Israel complete prisoner swap deal

(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-07-17 07:41

Zvi Regev said on Army Radio: "It was a terrible thing to see, really terrible. I was always optimistic, and I hoped all the time that I would meet Eldad and hug him."

Hezbollah's Safa said Israel had later handed over via the ICRC the bodies of eight Hezbollah fighters slain in the 2006 war, and those of four Palestinians, including Dalal Mughrabi, a woman guerrilla who led a 1978 raid on Israel.

Released Lebanese prisoner Samir Qantar hugs his brother Bassam upon his arrival at Beirut airport during a ceremony to celebrate his return from Israel July 16, 2008. Five Lebanese freed from captivity in Israel were flown to a heroes' welcome in Beirut on Wednesday after Hezbollah returned the bodies of two Israeli soldiers seized in a cross-border raid in 2006. [Agencies]

The four were among the nearly 200 Arabs killed trying to attack Israel whose bodies are to be transferred to Lebanon as part of the exchange. Hezbollah will return the remains of Israeli soldiers killed in south Lebanon.

Israel is also to free scores of Palestinian prisoners at a later date as a gesture to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

Hezbollah has dubbed the exchange "Operation Radwan", in honor of "Hajj Radwan", or Imad Moughniyah, the group's military commander who was assassinated in Syria in February.

Yellow Hezbollah flags fluttered across south Lebanon and on the coastal highway from Naqoura to Beirut. "Liberation of the captives: a new dawn for Lebanon and Palestine," a banner read.

Israel denounced the planned festivities.

"Samir Qantar is a brutal murderer of children and anybody celebrating him as a hero is trampling on basic human decency," said Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's spokesman Mark Regev.

 

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