420 for 1 businessman and 3 bodies.........of soldiers killed...

420 for 1 businessman and 3 bodies.....

....of soldiers killed after they were captured.

A hell of a deal!!!!

And Israel is considered the difficult one

- yeah right!!!

Israeli, Hezbollah Prisoner Swap Done


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Jan 29, 1:29 PM (ET)

By HUSSEIN DAKROUB

(AP) An Israeli soldier stands over Palestinian prisoners who pray after getting off a bus after their...
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BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) - A long-awaited prisoner swap between Israel and the Lebanese guerrilla group Hezbollah on Thursday freed more than 420 Palestinians and other Arabs, two Lebanese militia leaders and an Israeli businessman.

Tens of thousands of Hezbollah supporters lined an airport road in Beirut to welcome home the former prisoners, including Shiite cleric Abdel Karim Obeid and Lebanese guerrilla leader Mustafa Dirani.

Obeid was the first to disembark the plane. Sporting a long beard and white Shiite Muslim turban, he walked steadily toward a group of government officials. Dirani followed him.

Minutes earlier, an Israeli jet landed in Tel Aviv bringing home businessman Elhanan Tannenbaum and the bodies of three soldiers killed on the Israeli-Lebanese border.


(AP) A veiled Palestinian woman holds a portrait of Lebanese militant Samir Kantar during a protest at...
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The complex swap - carried out in two stages in Germany and in the Palestinian territories - went head despite a suicide bombing earlier Thursday on a bus in Jerusalem that killed 10 bystanders.

In the first stage, Israel released more than 400 Palestinian prisoners to jubilant relatives waiting for them in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The welcoming crowd cheered and praised Hezbollah, Israeli's arch enemy and listed by the United States as a terror group.

In the second stage, Israel brought 28 Arabs and a German national and Hezbollah brought the businessman and soldiers' coffins to an airport in Cologne, Germany. After the swap, planes bound for Tel Aviv and Beirut took off at almost the same time.

Israel also turned over the remains of 60 Lebanese militants as part of the deal. An Israeli military truck took the bodies to Israel's northern border with Lebanon. Israeli soldiers carried the coffins one by one and placed the wooden boxes into a Red Cross truck, which rumbled off through a border crossing.

In Beirut, the massive crowd of supporters waved Lebanese, Palestinian and Hezbollah flags, loudspeakers blared national and Hezbollah songs and a brass band played.

Lebanese President Emile Lahoud, Cabinet ministers and Hezbollah guerrilla leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah were on hand at Beirut International Airport for the red carpet return.

The soldiers were also captured in October 2000 after Hezbollah guerrillas set off a bomb next to their jeep on the Israel-Lebanon border. Examinations of the bodies determined that they died shortly after the attack.

The soldiers, Beni Avraham, Adi Avitan and Omar Souad, were captured in October 2000 after a Hezbollah roadside bomb hit their jeep during a patrol along the Lebanese border.

With the completed swap, the sides are to launch a second stage of negotiations, with Israel to receive concrete information on Arad within three months. In exchange, Israel would release Samir Kantar, a Lebanese militant who has been in an Israeli prison since 1979 for killing three Israelis.