Israel, Hezbollah swap prisoners

BEIRUT, Lebanon -- A long-awaited prisoner swap between Israel and the Lebanese guerrilla group Hezbollah on Thursday freed more than 420 Palestinians and other Arabs, two Lebanese militia leaders and an Israeli businessman.\nTens of thousands of Hezbollah supporters lined an airport road in Beirut to welcome home the former prisoners, including Shiite cleric Abdel Karim Obeid and Lebanese guerrilla leader Mustafa Dirani.\nObeid was the first to disembark the plane. Sporting a long beard and white Shiite Muslim turban, he walked steadily toward a group of government officials. Dirani followed him.\nMinutes earlier, an Israeli jet landed in Tel Aviv bringing home businessman Elhanan Tannenbaum and the bodies of three soldiers killed on the Israeli-Lebanese border.\nThe complex swap -- carried out in two stages in Germany and the Palestinian territories -- went ahead despite a suicide bombing earlier Thursday on a bus in Jerusalem that killed 10 bystanders.\nIn the first stage, Israel released more than 400 Palestinian prisoners to jubilant relatives waiting for them in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The welcoming crowd cheered and praised Hezbollah, Israeli's arch enemy listed by the United States as a terror group.\nIn the second stage, Israel brought 28 Arabs and a German national and Hezbollah brought the businessman and soldiers' coffins to an airport in Cologne, Germany. After the swap, planes bound for Tel Aviv and Beirut took off at almost the same time.