By Weedah Hamzah and Ofira Koopmans Jul 15, 2008, 10:27 GMT
Beirut/Jerusalem - In Lebanon on Tuesday, the families of the prisoners of the second Lebanon war were preparing to welcome home heroes, while in Israel, funeral arrangements were being made for the two soldiers whose capture on July 12, 2006 had sparked the 33-day conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.
Israeli authorities were due to Wednesday hand over high-profile Lebanese prisoner Samir Kuntar along with Hezbollah fighters Maher Kourani, Khodor Zaidan, Mohammed Srour and Hussein Suleiman.
They were to be exchanged for Israeli soldiers Eldad Regev and Ehud (Udi) Goldwasser - who are widely presumed to be dead - as part of a much-anticipated United Nations-mediated Israel-Hezbollah prisoner exchange deal.
Veteran Hezbollah fighter Kourani, 32, was captured in the final days of the war that ended with a ceasefire on August 14, 2006.
'I am very happy that he will be returning, of course, and that life will return to normal,' his wife, Asraa Kurani, 25, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa as his family prepared a hero's welcome.
Asraa Kourani last saw her husband three days before the start of the war when he told her: 'I am leaving, I might come back quickly, I might be late or I might not come back at all.'
The walls of the Kurani household are adorned with several pictures of Hezbollah secretary general Hassan Nasrallah and Imad Mughaniyah, the group's military chief who was assassinated in Damascus in February.
'He fought for 29 days and was captured four days before the end of the war,' his father Hassan told dpa.
Hezbollah have dubbed the prisoner swap deal as 'Operation Radwan' to honour Mughaniyah, who is believed to have masterminded the capture of Regev and Goldwasser on July 12, 2006. Israel meanwhile calls it 'Operation Moral High Ground.'
But while in Lebanon preparations for mass celebrations were in full swing, in Israel, the Regev and Goldwasser families waited anxiously for final confirmation on their sons' fate. Hezbollah has given no sign of life from the two since they were snatched and the families will only know whether they are alive or dead when the actual exchange takes place.
'I am on a nightmarish journey because of the uncertainty,' Zvi Regev, Eldad's father, told reporters from his home in Kiryat Motzkin, north of Haifa. 'It's impossible to describe how hard and unfathomable it it. I feel like this all the time, but the last two weeks were worse,' he said.
'I'm thinking all the time what will be, how Udi and Eldad will come home,' he added. 'There are two possibilities, either we will get the worst, or we will get them alive.'
The Israel Defence Force was preparing for military funerals for Regev and Goldwasser on Thursday, the Jerusalem Post reported Tuesday. The report said the funerals were likely to be held in their respective hometowns of Kiryat Motzzkin and Nahariya.
It was in the northern coastal town of Nahariya that Kuntar carried out the brutal attack in a 1979 hostage-taking that resulted in a multiple life sentences. Four Israeli's were killed, including a father and his four-year-old daughter.
Some of the families of Kuntar's victims have expressed outrage over the deal and protested his release. 'The price is too heavy to bear,' Yoram Shahar, the brother of one of the policemen killed by Kuntar, said Tuesday.
'This is a shameful deal. This is a deal of a government which has gone bankrupt,' he told Israel Radio, adding, 'I am sorry to say that I am ashamed of our leadership.'
Smadar Haran, Kuntar's main surviving victim, expressing sympathy with the families of the two soldiers, does not oppose the deal out of sympathy with the families of the two soldiers, even though it involves the release of the man who killed her husband and child.
'My soul is torn and in pain and it is getting stronger as we are approaching implementation of the deal,' she said from her home in Nahariya. 'But I accept the government decision,' she added.
During the attack, Haran had inadvertantly smothered her other, 2- year-old daughter to death while trying to keep her quiet as they hid from the hostage takers.
Kourani's family received only four letters from him during his incarceration. But they are sure that he will return to Hezbollah's military ranks - which he first joined in 1992 - as soon as he can.
The joyous mood in their home prevailed also at the family homes of Kourani's Hezbollah comrades Srour, Suleiman and Zaidan, ahead of their release.
Srour, from the village of Aita al Shaab, where the first spark of the July 2006 war started, has said he received training in Iran and was undergoing further training in eastern Lebanon's Bekaa Valley when the war broke out and he was sent to the frontline.
'Three days before he was captured he came to take some food for him and the other strugglers. He kissed me and told me to pray for him and for a victory. He also asked me to leave the town as soon as possible,' Srour's mother Sobhiyeh Rida said.
For Zaidan's family, seeing him will be akin to a miracle. The 26-year-old, now known as the 'live martyr,' was captured on August 4, 2006 as he was transferring supplies for Hezbollah, according to his family. At first, they thought he had been killed.
'We want to give him a hero's welcome,' his sister Zeinab told dpa.
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