Israel releases five Lebanese prisoners

Samir Kuntar and four other Lebanese prisoners have arrived in Lebanon as part of a prisoner swap between Hezbollah and Israel. The prisoners had been waiting at an army base, several kilometers south of Israel's border with Lebanon, for most of the day, ahead of their transfer to Lebanon. The men who were brought home in International Committee for the Red Cross vehicles received a red carpet welcome at Naqura coastal border town. Hezbollah officials along with hundreds of people welcomed the men upon their arrival Wednesday afternoon. Samir Kuntar, the longest serving Arab prisoner in Israel, was detained about thirty years ago while he was only 16. Earlier, Lebanon's Hezbollah had handed over the bodies of two Israeli soldiers, in exchange for Kuntar, Khadher Zeidan, Mohammed Srour, Hussein Sulaiman and Maher Kurani. "Today we hand over Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev," Hezbollah official Wafiq Safa said at the Naqura border crossing. Israeli defense officials, meanwhile, say forensic experts have identified the remains of the two soldiers, delivered earlier in the day.