FACTBOX - Israel-Hezbollah prisoner swap

(Reuters) - Hezbollah handed over coffins said to contain the bodies of two captured Israeli soldiers to the Red Cross at the Israeli-Lebanese border on Wednesday to exchange for Lebanese prisoners held by Israel.

The exchange was hailed as a triumph by the Lebanese guerrilla group and as a painful necessity by many Israelis.

Here are some details:

ISRAELI SOLDIERS:

-- In return for releasing five men, Israel has recovered the bodies of two of its soldiers, captured in a 2006 cross-border raid that triggered the 34-day war with the Iranian-backed group. Israel had entered indirect talks to retrieve the soldiers.

-- Eldad Regev from the town of Kiryat Motskin near the coastal city of Haifa, and Ehud Goldwasser from the northern Israeli city of Nahariya, were both military reservists. They were patrolling Israel's northern border in two armoured jeeps ambushed by Hezbollah guerrillas on July 12, 2006.

-- Relatives of one of the two soldiers said in June an Israeli negotiator had told them a German-mediated prisoner swap was coming together. Their families urged Hezbollah to show proof the two were still alive.

LEBANESE PRISONERS IN ISRAEL:

-- Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said in June that Lebanese prisoners would come home soon. He did not say if the two Israelis were dead or alive. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had said they were probably dead.