Thousands cheer 5 released Lebanese militants
BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) - July 16, 2008 The lopsided exchange was hailed as a triumph by Hezbollah
leader Hassan Nasrallah, who declared that the "age of victories
has come," and solidified the Iran-backed militant group's rising
political power in Lebanon and the wider Arab world.
For Israel the swap closed a painful chapter of its 2006 war in
Lebanon, but it prompted critics to question whether trading
prisoners for bodies would encourage future kidnappings by militant
groups.
Nasrallah told the crowd in Beirut that the prisoner exchange
demonstrated Hezbollah's power over Israel.
"The age of defeats is gone, and the age of victories has come.
This people, this nation gave a great and clear image today to its
friends and enemies that it cannot be defeated," he said.
Before being whisked away by bodyguards from only his third time
in public since the 2006 war, Nasrallah kissed and hugged each of
the five freed men.
One of the former prisoners, Samir Kantar, vowed to continue
fighting Israel.
"I promise my people and dear ones in Palestine that I and my
dear comrades in the valiant Islamic resistance are returning," he
told the roaring crowd.
An Israeli court convicted Kantar for a 1979 attack that left
four Israelis dead, including a father and his 4-year-old daughter.
The court found that Kantar shot Danny Haran in front of his child,
then smashed her head with his rifle butt.
Kantar, who was a 16-year-old fighter for a Palestinian group at
the time, denies killing the child, saying she died in a crossfire.
He has never expressed remorse for the incident.
Haran's wife, Smadar, who had fled into a crawl space in the
family apartment with her 2-year-old daughter, accidentally
smothered the child with her hand while trying to stifle her cries.
The welcoming rally in Hezbollah's stronghold of south Beirut
drew many of Lebanon's political leaders, including some from rival
parties whose supporters fought pitched street battles with
Hezbollah militants in May.
"Your return is a new victory," President Michel Suleiman told
the freed men as he stood in combat fatigues supplied by Hezbollah
in what was meant to display its unending fight against Israel.
Suleiman, who was supported by all factions for election to his
post, congratulated Hezbollah "for this new achievement."
Prime Minister Fuad Saniora, a leader of pro-American factions
that had to accept Hezbollah and its allies in a new unity
government after the street fighting, did not attend the rally. But
he was seen kissing the five freed men in greeting at Beirut
airport.
The tears of anguish in Israel were a somber contrast to the
joyous festivities in Lebanon.
Relatives prepared to bury soldiers Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad
Regev, whose abduction by Hezbollah fighters in a July 12, 2006,
cross-border raid led to a 34-day war with Israel. The war killed
more than 1,200 Lebanese, mostly civilians, and about 160 Israelis,
mostly soldiers.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert comforted Goldwasser's widow,
Karnit, when the coffins arrived at the Shraga army base in
northern Israel. Officials had suspected the men were dead, but
didn't know for sure until the bodies were delivered to the
southern border town of Naqoura.
It was not clear if Regev and Goldwasser were killed in the
Hezbollah raid or if they died in captivity. Evidence at the scene
indicated both men had suffered serious wounds, but Hezbollah
refused to release any information about them.
In addition to the five militants let out of Israeli cells,
Israel also is returning the remains of 199 Lebanese and
Palestinian fighters.
Among the first bodies returned Wednesday was that of Dalal
Mughrabi, who was shot in 1978 while participating in a militant
attack that killed 36 Israelis.
Her mother, Amina, told a Lebanese television station that she
was glad to finally get the remains. "I want to touch her with my
hand. I want to feel her," the woman said.
The exchange was mediated over the past 18 months by a
U.N.-appointed German official and began in the morning with the
return of the two soldiers in simple black coffins.
By late afternoon, the five Lebanese were accompanied to the
border by representatives of the International Committee of the Red
Cross.
In the Gaza Strip, which has been controlled by the anti-Israel
group Hamas for a year, people handed out sweets ahead of Kantar's
release. Gaza Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh called the militant an
"Arab nationalist hero."
After crossing the border, the five men put on Hezbollah
uniforms and reviewed an honor guard as they walked down a red
carpet to the tunes of a brass band playing martial music.
"We knew that you were waiting for the resistance and it
reached you. You came back free and heroes," Ibrahim Amin
al-Sayed, head of Hezbollah's political bureau, told them before
they boarded helicopters for Beirut.
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Associated Press writers Aron Heller in Rosh Hanikra, Hussein
Dakroub in Naqoura, and Zeina Karam and Bassem Mroue in Beirut
contributed to this report.