Hezbollah militants hand over bodies of Israeli troops

Published on Wednesday 16 July 2008 10:24

HEZBOLLAH militants today handed over the bodies of two Israeli soldiers to the Red Cross as part of a prisoner exchange.

Video footage showed two coffins being loaded into Red Cross vehicles on the Israel-Lebanon border.

It was the first confirmation that the two Israeli soldiers captured two years ago are dead.

Guerrillas took the soldiers in a July 2006 cross-border raid that sparked a month-long war with Israel.

Once in Israel, DNA tests will be conducted to confirm the bodies' identities.

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

The transfer is part of a United Nations-mediated deal in which Israel promised to release five Lebanese prisoners and the bodies of nearly 200 dead militants.

Israel moved the five Lebanese prisoners to a military base near the seaside border before dawn, preparing for their transfer to Lebanon.

They will not be handed over to the Red Cross in Lebanon until the identify of the bodies of the Israeli soldiers is confirmed.