LEBANON: Thousands of Hezbollah supporters attend funeral of fighter whose body was returned from Israel as part of a body and prisoner exchange

Hezbollah buried on Wednesday (October 17) one of its fighters who died in the 34-day war with Israel in 2006 and whose body was part of a recent prisoner and body exchange. Mohamed Yousef Asseily was laid to rest in his border village of al-Tireh in a funeral attended by thousands. Israel and Hezbollah exchanged the remains of an Israeli civilian on Monday (October 15) for a captive Lebanese guerrilla and the bodies of two comrades in a UN-brokered deal. Israel received the body of Israeli citizen Gabriel Dwat, an Ethiopian immigrant who drowned in January 2005 and whose body was washed onto the Lebanese coast. In exchange Hezbollah received freed prisoner Hassan Naim Aqil, a Hezbollah fighter captured in the 2006 war, and the bodies of the two fighters, who had apparently been taken to Israel after they died in the conflict in Lebanon. "This is one of the greatest achievements and victories that the resistance has had despite all the back-stabbing, betrayal and complacency from some internal sides and the international community," said Hezbollah MP Mohamed Raad during Mohamed Yousef Asseily's funeral. The sworn enemies indicated the swap could bolster UN efforts to secure the release of two Israeli soldiers whose capture triggered last year's war and Lebanese prisoners held in Israeli jails.

ITN Source | October 18, 2007

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