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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