Hezbollah turned over the bodies of 2 kidnapped and murdered Israeli soldiers today in exchange for the bodies of 200 fighters and 5 prisoners.
The bodies of captured Israeli soldiers Ehud Goldwasser, right, and Eldad Regev were returned to Israel today. Hezbollah had kept secret from the families that the soldiers were dead.
Before the exchange Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah taunted the families of the dead soldiers:
Hassan Nassrallah the Secretary General of the Hezbollah terror group held a press conference before the exchange where he taunted the families whose sons he holds but revealed little. (Israel National TV)
Hezbollah ambushed, kidnapped and killed 2 Israeli soldiers inside Israel.
Today the terrorist group exchanged the bodies of the dead soldiers for the bodies of 199 Lebanese and Palestinian terrorists and 5 terrorist prisoners.
FOX News reported:
Israel and its bitter enemy Hezbollah began a dramatic prisoner exchange Wednesday, with the Beirut-based terrorist organization handing over what was believed to be the bodies of two Israeli soldiers, while trucks carrying the remains of some 199 Lebanese and Palestinian fighters began crossing into Lebanon.
Family and friends outside the homes of the two captured Israeli soldiers burst into tears early Wednesday when TV images showed Hezbollah guerrillas taking the coffins out of a black GMC van. Though officials had suspected Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev were dead, the sight of the coffins was the first concrete sign of the young men’s fate.
There were those who held out hope that the soldiers were alive.
The BBC reported:
Earlier, the soldiers’ relatives broke down in tears as they saw the images of Hezbollah handing over the two coffins. Before the swap, it was unclear whether the two soldiers were alive or dead.
Some in Israel had held out hope that they might still be alive, but the images of two plain black coffins being delivered to the border told the soldiers’ family what they had long suspected, says the BBC’s Wyre Davies on the Israel-Lebanon border.
Earlier, the Lebanese prisoners were taken to the Rosh Hanikra border crossing on the Israeli-Lebanese border.
Israel’s “peace partner” celebrated the release of noted terrorist killer Samir al-Kuntar today after the swap.
UPDATE: The bodies of the dead Jewish soldiers were in “very poor condition.”
Haaretz reported:
After receiving the bodies, an Israeli forensics expert said that they were in very poor condition, having not been preserved, and surmised that identification could take a long time.
A Hezbollah security official said DNA tests conducted by the ICRC had verified the identity of the soldiers. The ICRC later denied this claim, saying the group had carried out no such process.
The families of the two soldiers had clung to the hope that they were still alive, despite the assumption by Israeli officials that they did not survive the abduction.
A Lebanese newspaper affiliated to Hezbollah reported Tuesday that one of the two had been killed in the attack, but did not specify which, or give details of the condition of the second soldier.
Atlas has photos from the handover.
