In something that resembled more of a rock concert than your traditional Hezbollah rally, the party's Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah made a rare in-person appearance on stage this evening at a ceremony celebrating the return of Hezbollah's prisoners exchanged for the bodies of two Israeli soldiers. Nasrallah has typically appeared live to his audience televised from an undisclosed location due to the threat of assassination.
Footage of Nasrallah's appearance at this event can be seen here on YouTube. After greeting the prisoners, he gives the crowd a quick pep talk, telling them how they’ve shown everybody that they cannot be defeated. In a joking manner, he then promises the crowd that he won't later be speaking on the screen for too long as he usually does.
In addition to four Hezbollah prisoners taken during the 2006 war with Israel, the exchange also included Samir Quntar, a Lebanese individual who belonged to a Palestinian militant group. While Hezbollah was not yet formed when Quntar was captured in 1979, his status as a ‘resistance’ figure propelled him into the spotlight in the group's ongoing campaign to free prisoners from Israeli jails. This effort culminated with the group's attempt to take additional Israeli prisoners for leverage in the summer of 2006, which sparked the war of that summer. Given Quntar's unique status, it perhaps comes to no surprise that he was outfitted with new Hezbollah gear for the celebration ceremony.
On a side note, an interview with one of the Hezbollah prisoners involved in the deal, Ali Hassan Suleiman (who was captured during the 2006 war), is available here. Note, I can't vouch for the commentary provided by the person who posted the video, but the translation is relatively accurate. The interview, apparently done while Suleiman was incarcerated, provides some insight into the background of Hezbollah fighters.
In Nasrallah's televised speech later on, he stressed that the three major factors that led to the release of the prisoners were the steadfastness of the Resistance, the secrecy of the Israeli prisoners’ status, and the weakness of the enemy. The release of the prisoners will likely encourage Hezbollah to shift its focus to the territorial disputes of Shebaa Farms and the Kfar Shouba Hills. While these issues could be settled through third-party intermediaries, the momentum gained by Hezbollah as a result of the prisoner swap won't likely motivate them to take a conciliatory stance on these territorial grievances.
