President Michel Suleiman, Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri and Premier Fouad Siniora led cabinet ministers, MPs and religious leaders in greeting the five who were arrived aboard two helicopters from the southern border village of Naqoura, hours after they were freed by Israel.
Suleiman delivered his speech as the five, four Hezbollah fighters and Palestine Liberation Front operative Samir Qantar, stood on a platform wearing military fatigues.
They later shook hands with politicians lined up to greet them. Well-wishers included Hezbollah's deputy chief Sheik Naim Qassem and Iran's Ambassador to Lebanon Mohamad Riza Shibani.
"Your return is a new victory and the future in your presence will be a path during which we will achieve sovereignty on our land and freedom for our people," the president said.
The five, Suleiman said, have "the right to be proud of their country, their army and their resistance."
After the ceremony, the five were driven through crowds to a Hezbollah-sponsored rally at south Beirut's Rayeh stadium.
Thousands of Hezbollah partisans and supporters of the Hezbollah-led parliamentary minority waved the flag's yellow banner and chanted slogans in support of Hassan Nasrallah, the party leader.
The swap got underway hours after Hezbollah handed over to the Jewish state the bodies of two soldiers it seized in a cross-border raid two years ago.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) handled logistics of the swap deal between Hezbollah and Israel, which was worked out by a U.N. mediator.
Four ICRC vehicles drove the five released Lebanese prisoners across the border to the southern coastal town of Naqoura, to be greeted by Hezbollah's security chief Wafiq Safa.
Qantar was sentenced to five life terms for a triple murder during a 1979 raid into northern Israel launched by the late Mohammed Abbas' Palestine Liberation Front.
Aside from Qantar, the four Hezbollah fighters released from Israeli jails are Khaled Zidan, Maher Kurani, Mohammed Srour and Hussein Suleiman.
A smiling Qantar, the longest serving Arab prisoner in Israeli jails, was wearing a gray sweatshirt and jeans as he descended a vehicle to embrace crowds of well-wishers.
Qantar's mother, Siham, 71, was shown on television embracing the freed prisoner's brother and crying tears of joy as she awaited him at Beirut airport where an official welcome is prepared for the five freed prisoners.
"I never gave up hope for a day," she said, choking back tears.
"This moment makes up for 30 years of waiting. I want to hug and kiss him. My only wish is to see him."
The five were released in exchange for the bodies of two Israeli soldiers, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, captured on July 12, 2006.
The fate of the two soldiers was not known until their bodies were returned to Israel Wednesday morning.
"Today we hand over Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev," Safa said at the Naqoura border crossing between Lebanon and Israel as men placed two black coffins on the ground amid a crowd of onlookers.
The mood in Israel had been somber as it waited to learn the fate of Goldwasser and Regev, whose capture in a deadly cross-border raid in July 2006 triggered a devastating 34-day war in Lebanon.
"Both soldiers have been identified," an army spokeswoman told Israeli Radio after forensic tests on the remains.
Goldwasser's family broke down in cries of despair when they saw the footage of Hezbollah handing over the caskets, while neighbors gathered around the Regev home, lighting candles and quietly shedding tears.
"Eldad! Eldad! What have they done to you?" wailed Regev's aunt Hana.
Senior Israeli army officers later visited the two families to formally notify them of the death.
Many in Israel question whether the nation is paying too high a price for the return of the soldiers who are to be buried on Thursday, saying the swap risks bolstering its arch foes in the region.
Meanwhile, in Lebanon a hero's welcome was underway with a red carpet ceremony in Naqoura, where patriotic songs and excerpts of speeches by Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah bellowed from loudspeakers and roads were festooned with celebratory banners.
Israel also turned over the bodies of eight Hezbollah fighters killed in the 2006 summer war in return for remains of Israeli soldiers killed in the 34-day confrontation.
The eight are part of 199 Palestinian Lebanese fighters whose bodies are to be returned to Lebanon in line with the swap deal.
Among the first bodies handed over was that of Dalal al-Moghrabi, who led a bloody commando attack in 1978 that Israelis describe as the "Coastal Road Massacre."
She was killed in a battle with Israeli forces after her group blew up a bus they had hijacked on the road between Tel Aviv and Haifa, killing 36 people.
The U.N.-brokered swap, which was given final approval by the Israeli cabinet on Tuesday, is the eighth between Israel and Hezbollah since 1991.
"Today Lebanon witnesses an unprecedented victory over Israel," proclaimed Lebanon's Ad-Diyar newspaper. "Today the Lebanese prisoners return to their country with their heads held high."
Israel's Jerusalem Post newspaper has billed the festivities in Lebanon as "a celebration of evil."
Photo: Released Lebanese prisoner, Samir Qantar, leaves in a van at the Lebanese-Israeli border to cross into Lebanon, July 16, 2008. Israel handed over five Lebanese prisoners to Hezbollah via the Red Cross on Wednesday after the Shi'ite guerrilla group returned the bodies of two Israeli soldiers seized in a cross-border raid in 2006
Tags: Hezbollah, Israel, Lebanon, source: Naharnet, Ya Libnan
