Hezbollah hands over remains to Israel in prisoner swap

ROSH HANIKRA, Israel -- Israeli forensic experts have begun trying to identify the remains of what are believed to be two captured Israeli soldiers, the Israel Defense Forces said.

Hezbollah officials handed over two black coffins to Red Cross officials, who will carry them over the border to Israel.

If forensics experts determine that the remains are those of Staff Sgt. Ehud Goldwasser and Sgt. 1st Class Eldad Regev, Israel will turn over to Hezbollah five Lebanese prisoners -- including convicted murderer Samir Kuntar, whom many Israelis consider the embodiment of evil.

Israel also is returning the remains of 199 fighters from Lebanon who the Jewish state said were killed in clashes over the years. Nineteen coffins were being transferred onto Red Cross trucks and sent to the Lebanese side, the Israeli military said.

The forensic determination is expected to take several hours.

The IDF said it would not comment on the transfer until it was complete.

"The IDF has yet to complete the process of identifying the soldiers' remains and will therefore make no comments about the process conclusions until those are completed and the families of the soldiers are notified," it said in a statement. Video Watch as the coffins are delivered »

The transfer began shortly before 10 a.m. (3 a.m. ET) at the Rosh Hanikra crossing in western Galilee, which the army had declared a closed military zone a day earlier.

The swap caps a tireless campaign by the soldiers' families to bring them home. It also ends decades of resistance by the Israeli government, which wanted to use Kuntar as a bargaining chip to obtain information about a missing airman whose plane crashed in Lebanon in 1986.

"To get the two servicemen back, we've had to pay a high price," said Mark Regev, spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. "We deliberated, we grappled with this decision for a long time because ultimately it's not an easy decision."

The Shiite militia Hezbollah cast the swap as a victory for all Lebanese, with one official calling it "an official admission of defeat."

On Saturday, Hezbollah delivered to Israel its report on the status of the airman, Ron Arad. Despite Olmert's description of the report as "absolutely unsatisfactory," the Israeli Cabinet approved the swap in a 22-3 vote Tuesday.

The day promised to be a somber one for Israel, but Lebanon was planning a boisterous "welcome home" ceremony for Kuntar and the four other prisoners.