Israelis mourn for slain soldiers finally laid to rest

THOUSANDS of mourners turned out for the burials of two Israeli soldiers returned in a prisoner exchange with Lebanese guerrillas, laying to rest the young men whose unknown fate had riveted the Jewish state for two years.

Across the border in Lebanon, the five militants freed as part of the prisoner swap prayed at the grave of Imad Mughniyeh, a slain Hezbollah military commander. They vowed to keep fighting Israel.

Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser’s remains were returned by Hezbollah on Wednesday in exchange for five Lebanese prisoners and the remains of some 200 Arab fighters. The pair’s 2006 capture in a cross-border raid by Hezbollah sparked a month-long war. It is not clear whether they died in captivity or during the raid in which they were seized.