Hezbollah members hand over the bodies
of two Israeli soldiers to the Red Cross to be exchanged for Lebanese
prisoners held by Israel at the Naqoura border point with Israel July
16,2008. (Xinhua/Reuters Photo) Photo
Gallery>>>
JERUSALEM, July 16 (Xinhua) -- Israel received the
bodies of two kidnapped Israeli soldiers from the Lebanese Hezbollah group as
part of a prisoners swap between the two sides on Wednesday.
Following several hours of DNA tests, an Israeli
forensic team concluded that the two bodies Hezbollah delivered via the
International Committee of the Red Cross were the remains of Ehud Goldwasser and
Eldad Regev, who were captured by the Lebanese group two years ago, an Israeli
army spokesman confirmed to Xinhua.
The spokesman added that the army has officially
notified the families of the two fallen soldiers of the testing results.
Earlier in the day, two black coffins were unloaded
from a Hezbollah vehicle at a UN peacekeeping base on the border between Israel
and Lebanon after a Hezbollah official confirmed for the first time that the two
Israeli soldiers were dead.
The International Committee of the Red Cross then
took the coffins and drove them into Israel.
During the period of the DNA tests, Israel began
returning the bodies of 199 others who were killed while infiltrating northern
Israel, as Red Cross trucks carrying the remains excavated during the previous
days are crossing the border to the Lebanese side.
According to the swap deal mediated by a UN-appointed
German official, Israel will then hand over to Hezbollah four imprisoned
Hezbollah militants and a Lebanese killer named Samir Kuntar, who were pardoned
by Israeli court and President Shimon Peres Tuesday in order to carry out the
exchange.
Hezbollah will then return the remains of Israeli
soldiers killed in south Lebanon during a 34-day war sparked by Goldwasser and
Regev's capture in 2006. The group also calls for the Jewish state to release
scores of Palestinian prisoners on a later date.
SORROW VS
JOY
Seeing the black coffins on TV, many Israelis,
foremost the two captives' families and friends, burst into tears, and an aunt
of Regev's collapsed. Tens of people lit up memorial candles outside the
soldiers' houses.
"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," Regev's father Zvi told Army Radio.
Although Israeli army had said before the swap that
they believed Goldwasser and Regev, were dead, the two families insisted that no
evidence could verify that conclusion.
"It is not easy to see this, although there was not
much surprise to it," Goldwasser's father Shlomo told Israel Radio. "But
confronting this reality was difficult."
The sorrow marked a sharp contrast with the joyous
atmosphere among Hezbollah supporters, as the return of Kuntar, who was
sentenced to life plus 40 years in prison for murdering three family members and
a police officer in Nahariya in 1979, and the four militants is seen as a big
victory for the militant group.
The Palestinian movement of Hamas also congratulated
the release of the Lebanese prisoners. Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said on
Wednesday that the swap represents "a great victory of the resistance" and that
Hamas would not abandon the Palestinian prisoners jailed in Israel.
However, Hamas announced earlier in the day that it
halted the Egyptian-mediated talks on Shalit because Israel did not commit
itself to an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire reached last month.
Israel is negotiating the release of another kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit with Hamas, while the Palestinian group demands Israel release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and open the Rafah crossing between the coastal strip and Egypt in return.
