joi, 17 iulie 2008

Rosh Hanikra, Israel


16.07.
Rosh Hanikra, Israel - Lebanese militant Samir Kantar and four other prisoners crossed into a buffer zone between Lebanon and Israel on Wednesday, part of a dramatic prisoner swap that also involved the return of two dead Israeli soldiers to the Jewish state.
The Lebanese were driven in vehicles to the buffer zone and were to cross by foot into Lebanon proper. Army crews removed barricades at the border to let the cars in.
17.07.
Haaretz.com
At quiet ceremony in north, the tears finally flow
The coffins of Israeli reservists Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser were delivered to an army base in the north yesterday, hours after being returned from Lebanon in a prisoner exchange with Hezbollah. The soldiers' families were waiting.
The swap took place two years and four days after their abduction from their army base near the border. Advertisement
The coffins, draped in Israeli flags, were driven the short distance from the Rosh Hanikra crossing on the Israel-Lebanon border to the Shraga army base. The two reservists were abducted by Hezbollah in a July 2006 cross-border raid that sparked the month-long Second Lebanon War.
At the base, the families were given time with the remains of their loved ones. The ceremony was quiet, intimate and short. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi, as well as his predecessor, Dan Halutz, embraced each of the family members. Halutz was chief of staff during the war. When Olmert embraced Eldad Regev's brother Ofer, both shed tears for several minutes.
Olmert, Barak, Ashkenazi and Halutz arrived at Shraga shortly before the coffins and the families. At about 7:30 P.M., each family was ushered into a tent containing the coffin of their loved one. Zvi, Eldad Regev's father, nearly collapsed from grief when he entered the tent. Olmert and Barak comforted the relatives and recited the Mourner's Kaddish as well as selected Psalms.

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