saluting the coffin of Ehud Goldwasser Hezbollah released the remains of two captured
Israeli soldiers
Ehud Goldwasser and
Eldad Regev. In exchange, Israel returned
Palestinian Liberation Front militant
Samir Kuntar, who was convicted of multiple murders in Israel,
Nasim Nisr, a man of Jewish heritage who had
immigrated to Israel from his native Lebanon and spied for Hezbollah, and Mahir Kourani, Mohammad Surour, Hussain Sulaiman and Khadr Zaidan, four Hezbollah militants taken prisoner by Israel in the
2006 Lebanon War. Israel also returned the remains of about 200 Lebanese and Palestinian militants killed whose bodies had been brought to Israel and buried there. Eight of these were Hezbollah fighters killed in the 2006 war. It has long been the general policy of Israel not to return the remains of killed militants that had engaged in "hostile terrorist activity" to their families for burial. The exchange deal was carried out in accordance with the
Red Cross and
UN observers. On 1 June 2008, Israel released the Lebanese-born Israeli convict Nasim Nisr (Nissim Nasser) in exchange for the remains of the two Israeli soldiers killed during the initial Hezbollah attack. In October 2007, Israel and Hezbollah agreed to exchange a civilian Hezbollah member kidnapped in 2006 and the remains of two Hezbollah fighters killed and brought to Israel, in exchange for the remains of Gabriel Dwait, an Israeli resident who drowned and washed ashore in Lebanon. The released prisoner was 50-year-old Hassan Naim Aqil, a former Hezbollah guerrilla who did not fight in the Second Lebanon War. ==Reactions==