THEY ARE BACK, BUT THERE IS NO HAPPINESS.....

Hundreds of people in this Druze village eagerly awaited the return on Thursday of Samir Kantar, Lebanon's longest serving prisoner who was released by Israel a day earlier as part of a swap deal.

"We are very happy on this beautiful day, this is a victory for Lebanon and the national resistance," said Yusra Khaddaj, 39, as she stood with her three young daughters on the road leading to Aabey, Kantar's home town located some 30 kilometres (18 miles) southeast of Beirut.
"Samir Kantar is the son of all the Lebanese," added Khaddaj, holding a bowl of rice and flower petals she planned to throw on his convoy.
A folklore band was also on hand to take part in the celebrations.
One banner along the road leading to Aabey read: "From Palestine, to Iraq to Lebanon, the resistance is victorious."
Another said "Our prisoners are our promise," in reference to Hezbollah's vow to free Kantar and other prisoners held in Israel.
Meanwhile trucks bedecked with flowers transported the remains of 199 Arab fighters from the border town of Naqura to the Lebanese capital where a ceremony was to be held in their honour before they would be handed over to their families.
Supporters threw rose petals and rice and some cheered as the makeshift hearses carrying the bodies of the Lebanese and Palestinian fighters passed on its journey to Beirut.
The mothers of some of the Palestinian fighters killed in battles with Israeli troops during Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war wept as they accompanied the cortege and sought to touch the coffins draped in Lebanese or Palestinian flags.
The remains were handed over by Israel on Wednesday along with Kantar and four Hezbollah fighters in exchange for the bodies of two Israeli soldiers captured by the Shiite guerrilla group two years ago.
Funerals were held for the two soldiers in Israel on Thursday.
Their capture sparked a devastating 34-day war between Hezbollah and Israel in which over 1,200 Lebanese, mostly civilians, and over 160 Israelis, mostly soldiers, were killed.
Hezbollah has dubbed the swap "the Radwan operation" after the alias used by notorious Hezbollah military commander Imad Mughnieh, who was killed in a bombing in Syria in February for which Hezbollah has blamed Israel.
Kantar, who turns 46 on July 22, visited Mughnieh's tomb in Hezbollah's stronghold in the southern suburbs of Beirut on Thursday before heading to his village in a triumphal cavalcade.
He was just 17 when sentenced to five life terms for a 1979 triple murder, including of a four-year-old child.
His release and return to Lebanon to a jubilant hero's welcome drew condemnation in Israel and other circles.
Iran meanwhile said the prisoner swap between Israel and Hezbollah was an achievement both for the guerrilla movement and the Lebanese people, the state news agency IRNA reported.
"The glad news of the release of Lebanese prisoners by the Zionist regime is part of the achievement by the Islamic Hezbollah and the dear Lebanese people's resistance. We congratulate them for this great victory," Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki was quoted as saying.

Thousands of mourners have gathered in Israel to bury two soldiers returned in a prisoner exchange with Lebanon's Hizbollah guerrillas.
The remains of Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev were returned by Hizbollah in exchange for five Lebanese prisoners and the remains of some 200 Arab fighters.
Mr Goldwasser's wooden coffin was lowered into the ground by soldiers wearing the purple caps of an elite brigade in the northern Israeli town of Nahariya.
His widow, Karnit Goldwasser, held on to her late husband's father as each wiped away tears.
In keeping with Jewish tradition, Mr Goldwasser's father Shlomo wore a shirt ripped at the front, to signify mourning.
Later, soldiers carried the coffin of Eldad Regev, draped with the blue and white Israeli flag, toward the military cemetery in the northern Israeli city of Haifa.
Although Israeli officials had suspected the soldiers were dead, the sight of the coffins was the first concrete sign of their fate.
Lebanon's Al-Manar TV quoted senior Hizbollah official Wafik Safa at the border as saying the soldiers' bodies were in a "mutilated" shape from injuries they suffered during the July 12, 2006, raid.
Israeli forensic experts examined the remains for several hours, checking dental records among other things, before confirming the soldiers' identities.
Israeli generals then went to the families' homes to deliver the news.
Meanwhile, in Lebanon, four tractor-trailers loaded with coffins carrying the remains of nearly 200 Lebanese and Palestinian fighters were driven from south Lebanon to Beirut for burial.
The dead fighters, and five living prisoners - including notorious killer Samir Kuntar - were exchanged for the two dead Israelis.
Villagers showered the Lebanese coffins with rice and rose petals on the road leading out of the coastal town of Naqoura, where the swap took place.
The coffins were wrapped in Lebanese and Hizbollah flags and covered with wreaths.
A banner on one of the trucks read The Martyrs Of Victory.
Kuntar received a hero's welcome on his return to Lebanon, with reclusive Hizbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah making a rare public appearance amid scenes of wild celebration.
Kuntar, Israel's most notorious prisoner, was sentenced to three life terms for killing an Israeli man in front of his four-year-old daughter, then killing the little girl by smashing her skull with his rifle butt.
Sky News Middle East correspondent Dominic Waghorn, in Lebanon, said the celebrations for Kuntar's return had continued overnight.
He said: "This morning Kuntar went to the grave of Imad Mughniyeh, a senior Hizbollah commander killed in the Syrian capital of Damascus in a car bomb blamed on Israel before going onto his home town.
"Hizbollah says it has still to retaliate for Mughniyeh's killing.
"The issue of Lebanese prisoners in Israeli jails has now been settled, with the last one sent home. But there are plenty of other reasons to be worried about relations between Hizbollah and Israel."