Israel has freed 5 terrorists, including one who killed an Israeli civilian and his daughter, as well as a police officer.
NAQOURA, Lebanon — Israel freed a notorious Lebanese attacker and four others Wednesday after Hezbollah handed over two black coffins with the bodies of Israeli soldiers, a dramatic prisoner swap that closes a painful chapter from the 2006 war in Lebanon.
The five — including Samir Kantar, who had been serving multiple life terms in Israel for a grisly 1979 attack — were brought home in International Committee for the Red Cross vehicles and received a red-carpet welcome in this coastal border town.
In Israel, family and friends outside the homes of the Israeli soldiers burst into tears when TV images showed Lebanon’s Hezbollah guerrillas taking the coffins out of a black van.
Though officials had suspected Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev were dead, the sight of the coffins confirmed their fate.
The swap — mediated by a United Nations-appointed German official who shuttled between the sides for 18 months — reopened another searing moment from Israel’s past with the release of Kantar and four other Lebanese prisoners.
Kantar was convicted in a 1979 nighttime attack that killed a 4-year-old girl, her father and a police officer. Although polls show Israelis solidly endorse the exchange, many see Kantar as the embodiment of evil.
This will only serve to embolden terrorists, by sending the message that we will release terrorists, in exchange for our dead.
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