Hezbollah is also required to return the remains of Israeli soldiers killed in south Lebanon during a 34-day war sparked by Goldwasser and Regev's capture in 2006. Meanwhile, the group also calls for the Jewish state to release scores of Palestinian prisoners on a later date.

The dramatic swap deal also saw that Hezbollah, days ago, transferred to Israel an 80-page report on the fate of missing Israeli navigator Ron Arad, who was shot down over Lebanon in 1986 and held by Shiite Amal group until the night of May 4, 1988, when he disappeared.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has believed the release of Kuntar to be the last bargaining chip for information on Arad. But Israel said the report supplied by Hezbollah on Arad had failed to clarify his fate.

An Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesman speaks to the media after the identification of the remains of two Israeli soldiers at the entrance of Rosh Hanikra Lebanon-Israel border crossing, July 16, 2008. Hezbollah returned on Wednesday the two abducted Israeli reservists Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev in exchange for five imprisoned Lebanese militants and the remains of some 200 Arabs. (Xinhua/Yin Bogu)

SORROW VS JOY

Seeing the black coffins on TV, many Israelis, foremost the two captives' families and friends, burst into tears, and an aunt of Regev's collapsed. Tens of people lit up memorial candles outside the soldiers' houses.

Although Israeli army said before the swap that they believed Goldwasser and Regev, were dead, the two families insisted that no evidence could verify that conclusion, and had been clinging to the last glimmer of hope.

"It was a terrible thing to see, really terrible. I was always optimistic, and I hoped all the time that I would meet Eldad and hug him," Regev's father Zvi told Army Radio.

"It is not easy to see this, although there was not much surprise to it," Goldwasser's father Shlomo told Israel Radio. " But confronting this reality was difficult."

"The entire Israeli nation is enveloping and hugging the Goldwasser and Regev families in their mourning. This is a day in which doubts have been removed regarding Udi and Eldad's fates but also regarding Israel's moral might," said Olmert in a special statement.