Hizbullah starts exchanging prisoners with Israel

News reports in Beirut said that the Lebanese Hizbullah handed over the German mediator late night yesterday in Beirut the Israeli reserve officer Elhanan Tananbaum and bodies of three Israeli soldiers in the framework of the prisoners exchange deal.

The party had said that the three troops who were detained in 2000 on the borders with Lebanon are dead. This is, however, the first time in which the party frankly specified the fate of the soldiers.

Al-Manar TV of the Hizbullah party showed shots for three wooden coffins while they were placed in a German plane landing in Beirut airport and the Israeli prisoner walking to the plane.

The plane will transport later in the day, the Israeli prisoner and the remains of the three soldiers to Germany for tests by doctors before they are transported by air to Israel. For that, Israel will release 436 prisoners most of them are Palestinians.

The Lebanese citizens started actual preparations to receive the prisoners amid atmospheres of happiness mingled with bitterness waiting for the release of the oldest Lebanese prisoner Samir al- Qintar. The same situation are in Palestine where 7000 of its people are still in the occupation detention centers.