TEL AVIV (AFP) - After 1,210 days of anguish, the family of Benyamin Avraham bade a final farewell to the young Israeli soldier, one of three servicemen whose bodies were returned home as part of a deal with Hezbollah.
"Your mission is complete and finally you have come back to us," his father Haim said at an emotional funeral.
Struggling to hold back his tears, Haim then watched with hundreds of other mourners as his son was lowered into a freshly dug grave at the Kiryat Shaul military cemetery in Tel Aviv.
Benyamin, known to everyone as Benny, was flown home along with the bodies of his comrades-in-arms Adi Avitan and Omar Sawayed late Thursday from Germany, more than three years after they were seized at the Israeli-Lebanese border by the Shiite Muslim militant group Hezbollah.
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