Swapped human remains reach Syria

Syria has received the bodies of 114 Arab fighters handed over by Israel as part of last week's exchange with Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

Their coffins were driven on flatbed lorries over a crossing point between Lebanon and Syria and were later paraded through Damascus.

Most were Syrian nationals or Palestinian refugees living in Syria.

Israel released five Lebanese prisoners and almost 200 bodies in return for two dead soldiers captured in 2006.

Twenty-one bodies identified as Palestinian refugees from Lebanon were buried on Monday in a cemetery on the edge of a refugee camp in Beirut.

PRISONER EXCHANGE

• From Hezbollah: Bodies of Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, and remains of other Israeli soldiers killed in Lebanon in 2006
• From Israel: Five Lebanese prisoners, including Samir Qantar, and remains of some 200 Lebanese and Palestinian fighters

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Hundreds of relatives greeted the coffins as they passed through the Jedaideh crossing on Wednesday.

Hezbollah said the bodies, who were mostly killed in skirmishes on the Lebanon-Israel border, included slain Jordanian and Libyan guerrillas and one Tunisian.

The remains of a Kuwaiti national were flown to his homeland on Monday and buried by relatives.

An official of a Palestinian faction in Syria said some of the remains would be transported to the fighters' homelands if governments agreed.

Last week, thousands attended the funerals of eight Hezbollah militants whose bodies were returned as part of a prisoner.

Israel also buried remains of two reservists, who Hezbollah said were fatally wounded in an ambush in 2006 that triggered a devastating 34-day war which ultimately failed to secure their capture.