ISRAEL:THOUSANDS OF mourners gathered at military cemeteries in Israel yesterday to bury two soldiers whose remains were returned a day earlier by the Lebanese militant group Hizbullah as part of a swap.
The services, at cemeteries in the Israeli towns of Nahariya and Haifa, were broadcast live on national television and attended by senior government leaders. Newspapers were dominated by a photograph of prime minister Ehud Olmert embracing Karnit Goldwasser, widow of one of the soldiers, before the coffin of her dead husband.
In sharp contrast, Hizbullah continued its celebrations in Lebanon yesterday for the five prisoners released by Israel as part of the deal. The five were taken to a cemetery south of Beirut to pray at the grave of an assassinated Hizbullah commander, Imad Mughniyeh.
The two Israeli soldiers, Eldad Regev (27) and Ehud Goldwasser (32), were attacked in a Hizbullah ambush two years ago that sparked the Lebanon war, which left nearly 1,200 people dead.
Reports in Israel indicated that military doctors believed one of the soldiers was killed in the ambush and that the second was severely wounded and died afterwards. Hizbullah dragged their bodies into Lebanon.
At the funeral for Regev, defence minister Ehud Barak said Israel remained committed to recovering soldiers captured in combat. "In the name of a hurting state, we salute you," he said.
There was much criticism in Israel over Hizbullah's celebrations to welcome Samir Qantar, one of the five prisoners released.
He had been convicted of several counts of murder, attempted murder and kidnapping for an attack on an Israeli family in 1979. The other four prisoners were Hizbullah fighters captured by Israel in southern Lebanon during the 2006 war. - (Guardian service)