This goes to show which side is civilised, but was it a smart thing for Israel to do, to agree to this exchange? In the future does it mean that all Israels enemies have to do, to guarantee the release of their people, is to kidnap and kill Israelis.

This morning at 9.40 Israel time, 24 months and five days after Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev were abducted by Hezbollah in a cross-border raid that precipitated the Second Lebanon War, the bodies of the two reserve soldiers were returned to Israel.

Hezbollah officials arrived shortly after 9 a.m. at the Naqoura border crossing, which borders the Israeli town of Rosh Hanikra. Ignoring reporters’ questions about the state of the two captives, they waited until they were surrounded by photographers and cameramen before dramatically unloading and displaying two black wooden coffins.

Hezbollah security official Wafik Safa then said, “We are handing over the two Israeli soldiers that were captured by the resistance … and whose fate has been unknown until this moment. Now you know their fate.”

Hezbollah, the cold heartless bastards, had refused to give any official word on the fate of the soldiers.

Thus, at 9.39 a.m., the Goldwasser and Regev families could still hope that their loved ones would emerge alive from the back of the Hezbollah truck. But by 9.40, that hope was extinguished.

Eldad Regev’s father, Zvi, told Israeli Army Radio, “It was a terrible thing to see, really terrible. I was always optimistic, and I hoped all the time that I would meet Eldad and hug him.” A commentator on Israel’s Channel 10 news contemptuously referred to the Shi’ite militia’s insistence on playing games until the last possible second as an “act of necrophilia.”

As the image of the coffins was broadcast on Israeli television, a muted wail of grief was heard from the friends and relatives gathered outside the Regev home in Kiryat Motzkin. Eldad Regev’s aunt, Hannah, collapsed and was attended to by paramedics.

In exchange for the bodies of the abducted soldiers, Israel agreed to transfer the bodies of 185 Palestinians and Lebanese militants who had been killed by the IDF while attempting to infiltrate Israel, to release four Hezbollah militants who had been captured during the Second Lebanon War, and to release Israel’s most notorious political prisoner - the Lebanese Druze, Samir Kuntar.

Here is a description of one of the murders committed by Samir Kuntar.

He took his rifle and then swung it across the toddler’s head, knocking her to the ground. Kuntar then dragged the toddler a couple of feet to the closest rock he could find and laid her head down on a rock, with the intention of crushing it with the butt of his rifle. Einat, instinctively covered her head with her arms, Kuntar struggled with the toddler until he finally managed to clear her arms out of the way. Once her arms were out of the way, Kuntar repeatedly beat her on the head with the butt of his rifle and stomping on her body, until blood rushed out of her ears and mouth. Then, to ensure she was dead, Kuntar continued beating her over the head until her skull was crushed and she was dead

The Lebanese prisoners arrived home to a heroes welcome! Sick bastards!