Israel's Exchange

The bodies of Israeli soldiers Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev that were handed over by Hezbollah in an exhange were mutilated.

Rabbi Yisrael Weiss, former Chief Rabbi of the IDF, who was present during the transfer of the fallen soldiers yesterday, said that "the verification process yesterday was very slow, because, if we thought the enemy was cruel to the living and the dead, we were surprised, when we opened the caskets, to discover just how cruel. And I'll leave it at that."

Although it's thought that Goldwasser was killed during the inital attack, there is some doubt about just when Hezbollah killed Regev. It may be that he was murdered after being kidnapped.

And the bodies of the dead Hezbollah terrorists which Israel returned to Lebanon? Well, the UN peacekeepers there saw fit to salute them. And the freed terrorists vowed to continue fighting Israel. One of those terrorists is Samir Kuntar, guilty of murdering five Israelis. Two of his victims were a father and his daughter- he shot the father in front of the four year old girl and then crushed her skull with the butt of his rifle.

This monster was given a celebratory welcome by thousands of cheering supporters.

Rather bizarrely both Ban Ki Moon of the UN and an EU spokesperson both consider the exhange to be a success. Perhaps they are not paying attention. Kuntar had this to say on his return to Lebanon-

"We swear to God...to continue on your same path and not to retreat until we achieve the same stature that Allah bestowed on you," said Lebanon's longest-held prisoner in Israel, Samir Kuntar. He refered to Mughniyeh's "martyrdom."

"This is our great wish. We envy you and we will achieve it, God willing," Kuntar said.

And Hamas said this-

"Hamas considers the exchange of prisoners between Hizbullah and the Israeli occupation to be a great victory for the resistance and Hizbullah," spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said in a statement.

"It proves that a useful way to liberate prisoners from the jails of the occupation is to capture Zionist soldiers, since the occupation refuses to release prisoners and keeps arresting more of them," it added.

That's supposed to be a positive step forward for peace in the region?