BEIRUT — Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah on Wednesday warmly welcomed the five Lebanese men who were released from Israeli custody in exchange for the bodies of two Israeli soldiers.
Nasrallah embraced Samir Kuntar, the most notorious Lebanese convict held by Israel, who was returning to Lebanon after 29 years in jail. He then hugged the four other fighters released with Kuntar in a swap approved by Israel's Cabinet on Tuesday.
"The time of defeats has gone and the time of victories has come," Nasrallah, who rarely appears in public, said to a crowd of thousands gathered in south Beirut.
As Israelis mourned the two soldiers whose bodies were returned to their country, Hezbollah leaders and followers celebrated what they described as a huge triumph for the Shiite Muslim militant group.
Nasrallah's appearance was cheered by the crowd of Hezbollah supporters who gathered for a ceremony in honor of the released fighters, many of them carrying yellow flags and photos of the men. Some raised their fists in the air, chanting their allegiance to Nasrallah. Others took photos of him with their cellphones.
"This is a big national celebration," Nasrallah said in a speech. "The real identity of the people of our region . . . is the identity of the resistance and its will and its culture."
Nasrallah criticized those who accused him of dragging the country into a war two summers ago.
"The main element that made us reach [our goal] is steadfastness and victory in the face of the 2006 aggression, and the enemy's failure to reach any of its goals," he said.
Behind the podium was a picture of a raised fist, symbolizing Hezbollah's fight against Israel, and posters reading, "God's achievement by our hands," "The first manifestations of victory," and "We are people who don't leave their prisoners."
Hezbollah captured the two Israeli soldiers in a July 2006 cross-border raid that sparked a monthlong war that devastated large swaths of Lebanon. The group had wanted to seize soldiers to bargain for the release of Kuntar, who was serving life sentences, and other Lebanese prisoners.
In 1979, Kuntar, who was 16, was part of a cell that raided the Israeli town of Nahariya, fatally shooting a policeman and later a civilian in front of his daughter. The girl was then killed by a rifle-butt blow to the head.
