Even after the bodies of the two Israeli soldiers, Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser, had been handed over to Israel and examined by Red Cross officials yesterday, their parents clung to the hope that a mistake had been made, and that their sons would yet walk back across the border.

“We will continue to hope until we can hope no more,” said Tzvi Regev, the father of Sergeant Regev.

The faint chance that at least one of the soldiers would be returned alive two years after they were captured by Hezbollah guerrillas pushed Israel to pay a high price for the exchange. Five Hezbollah prisoners were set free for the remains of the two soldiers, the most notorious among them Samir Qantar, who spent almost 30 years in an Israeli prison for the killing of an Israeli father and his young daughter. Israel also returned the bodies of nearly 200 Palestinian and Lebanese militants that had been killed in clashes over the past decades.

Only hours after the exchange would the Regev family acknowledge that there was no more room for hope. Israeli forensic science teams confirmed what the Red Cross had already determined — that two black coffins handed over by the militant Shia group contained the corpses of Goldwasser and Regev. The abduction of the two soldiers set off a 34-day war between Lebanon and Israel in 2006.

“It was horrible to see it,” said Mr Regev, choking back tears as he described watching one of the coffins being removed from the Red Cross vehicle that had brought the remains back across the border. “We were always hoping that Ehud and Eldad were alive and that they would come home and we would hug them.” A member of the Regev family added that it was impossible to watch the celebrations across Lebanon, as the family prepared for a funeral.

In contrast to the festivities in Lebanon, a sombre mood enveloped much of Israel. Nowhere was the gravity of the day felt stronger than in the small coastal town of Nahariya, where the home of the Goldwasser family stands a few minutes’ drive from the apartment building where Mr Qantar killed Danny Haran and his daughter, aged 4. The killing was for ever seared into the nation’s consciousness as one of the most brutal acts of terrorism in Israel’s history.

In Mr Qantar’s trial witnesses recalled how in the dead of night on April 22, 1979, he shot Mr Haran in front of his child, then killed the girl by smashing her skull against a rock with his rifle butt. Mr Haran’s wife, Smadar, accidentally smothered her two-year-old daughter with her hand while trying to stifle her cries as she hid from the killer. He has never expressed remorse over the killings.

Israel had hitherto held Mr Qantar as a bargaining chip to win new information about Ron Arad, an Israeli airman whose plane crashed in Lebanon in 1986. Under pressure from the captured soldiers’ families to bring them home, Israel’s Cabinet voted on Tuesday to release him in exchange for the bodies of the two captured soldiers.

Outside the Goldwassers’ home, dozens of mourners gathered to light candles and say prayers. Among their visitors were the family of Gilad Schalit, the soldier still held by Hamas after being captured by Islamist militants in an ambush shortly before Hezbollah’s fateful cross-border raid.

Michal Amitay and Yael Ofanti, two mothers who have sons serving in the army, said that they came to the home to show solidarity for the bereaved mothers of Goldwasser and Regev. “Two years ago it was them, God forbid, it could have been my son. Nothing is more important than bringing home our sons, even if they are in body bags,” said Ms Amitay.

Others, however, felt that Israel had “gone soft” and given up too much on the bargaining table with Hezbollah.

Ian Kemp, 67, who moved from Brighton to Israel seven years ago, said that Israel was allowing sentimentality over the two soldiers to affect its diplomacy. “There won’t be any peace. We lost the war, and until we have a stronger government able to make difficult decisions we will lose the next one too,” he said. While sympathising with the parents, he could not help but feel that the return of Mr Qantar would encourage Hezbollah to attempt future kidnappings of Israelis.

“This is the weakest government we have ever had. All they are buying is more killings and time for themselves,” he said, adding that the deal could have also undermined Israel’s bargaining power with Hamas.

Ehud Olmert, the Israeli Prime Minister, has been criticised for striking the deal to divert attention from the numerous corruptions scandals that surround him.

Times Recommends

• Rio Tinto four held as China prepares case
• Diplomats must keep heads down and trousers up
• When in Rome should one make like Berlusconi?