Israel grieves for Regev and Goldwasser

The Regevs wanted privacy. But that didn't stop dozens of friends, neighbors and schoolchildren from lighting candles outside their home in a quiet suburb of Haifa. Or TV crews from filming the vigil. Or viewers all over Israel from watching it live.

Eldad Regev and fellow soldier Ehud Goldwasser were national figures. And they were finally coming home.

Israeli leaders had held out little hope that the two army reservists, whose capture set off a full-scale war with Lebanon's Hezbollah guerrillas two summers ago, were still alive. But hope was all the two families could cling to, and for a few hours Wednesday morning people across the country were drawn into the suspense.

When threatened from outside, Israeli Jews relate to one another like members of an extended family. The anguish felt by the Goldwassers and Regevs has been widely shared in a country where most young people serve in the military. Their private campaign became a national crusade.

That solidarity helps explain how the two families managed to press reluctant Israeli leaders into trading a notorious killer and four other jailed Lebanese militants for their sons in a U.N.-mediated deal with Hezbollah.

And it explains the grief that washed over the country just before 10 a.m. as TV broadcasts showed Hezbollah militants deliver two black coffins to the Lebanese side of a coastal border gate.

Only then were the soldiers' deaths confirmed.

"In Israel, the nation is in tears," President Shimon Peres said. "Today, all of us are the Goldwasser and Regev families."

Through television Israelis have come to know Shlomo and Mickey Goldwasser, whose son was 30 when he and Regev were captured on July 12, 2006. Karnit Goldwasser, who had married the reservist 10 months earlier, has become a celebrity for her globe-trotting campaign on his behalf.

Portraits of the two men, with the slogan "Bring our sons home," were ubiquitous in Israel -- Goldwasser, the professional photographer in civilian life, and Regev, whose acceptance to law school came a few days after his capture at age 26.

That intimacy gave their families little room for private grief over their deaths. Facing a crowd of reporters in his hometown of Nahariya, Shlomo Goldwasser said the image of the coffins hit him like "a punch in the gut."

Regev's aunt Hannah screamed, "Eldad! Eldad! What have they done to you?" and collapsed outside the family's home after watching the same televised scene.