Israel and Lebanon's Hizbullah on Wednesday carried out a prisoner swap deal two years after they fought a month-long war. In a deal mediated by a U.N.-appointed German intelligence officer, Israel was to free five prisoners in exchange for two soldiers captured by Hizbullah in a 2006 cross-border raid, who are widely presumed dead.
Israel will also hand over the bodies of 200 fighters killed trying to infiltrate northern Israel. Hizbullah will return the remains of Israeli soldiers killed in south Lebanon.
A spokeswoman for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which is arranging the exchange started around 9:00 a.m. (0600 GMT), confirmed early Wednesday the first truck carrying the remains of Arab infiltrators was on its way to the border.
A Lebanese security source said it might take until Thursday to complete the transfer of all the remains. "We think, we hope, especially, it is possible to do it in one day. But it's definitely going to be a long day," Jordi Raich, head of the ICRC in Lebanon told Reuters.
The Israeli army said it had sealed the border area late on Tuesday night in preparation for the exchange.
Among those slated for release was Samir Qantar, who had been serving a life prison term for the killing of four Israelis, including a four-year-old girl and her father, in a 1979 attack.
Israeli President Shimon Peres set the prisoner swap in motion by formally pardoning Qantar, reviled in Israel for his role in that attack. Qantar, who was 17 at the time, has said that the father was shot by Israeli soldiers who also wounded him, and that he doesn't remember what happened to the girl.
In a statement, Peres said he felt "bitter and unbearable pain" at the decision and that it "in now way constitutes forgiveness... I neither forget nor forgive", but that Israel was obliged to win the soldiers' release.
