RT Monitoring Desk
LEBANON/ISRAEL BORDER: Hizbullah handed the bodies of two Israeli soldiers to the Red Cross on Wednesday to be exchanged for Lebanese prisoners held by Israel in a deal viewed as a triumph by the Lebanese Shi’ite guerrilla group. Many Israelis see it as a painful necessity, two years after the soldiers’ capture sparked a 34-day war with Hizbullah that killed about 1,200 people in Lebanon and 159 Israelis.
Two black coffins were unloaded from a Hizbullah vehicle at a U.N. peacekeeping base on the Israel-Lebanon border after a Hizbullah official, Wafik Safa, disclosed for the first time that army reservists Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev were dead. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) took the coffins and drove them into Israel. Safa later said DNA tests conducted by the ICRC had verified the identity of the soldiers. The Israeli army said it had started its own checks. “We are now handing over the two imprisoned Israeli soldiers, who were captured by the Islamic resistance on July 12, 2006, to the ICRC,” Safa said at the border. “The Israeli side will now hand over the great Arab mujahid (holy warrior) ... Samir Qantar and his companions to the ICRC.” In a deal mediated by a U.N.-appointed German intelligence officer, Israel was to free Qantar and four other prisoners.