NAQURA, Lebanon (AFP) – Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah called for the capture of Israeli soldiers, as the Jewish state returned the bodies of three fighters of the Lebanese Shiite movement killed in clashes.  During a ceremony to honour those killed, Nasrallah told militants it was their duty to try to capture Israeli soldiers, to use as bargaining chips for the release of Lebanese held by Israel.

"It is our natural right to capture Israeli soldiers, it is even our duty … it is not a terrorist act, nor a crime … but a natural right," said Nasrallah. Israel said that Monday’s clashes in which the fighters died were sparked by "a deliberate and concerted attack by Hezbollah aimed at kidnapping Israeli soldiers".

 Early on Friday officials from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), in a five-vehicle convoy, crossed into Israel and returned with the bodies to the frontier village of Naqura.

Several hundred Hezbollah supporters waited at the village to receive the corpses whose return had been demanded by Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora.

A fourth Hezbollah fatality in the clashes has already been buried in his southern village of Zibqin.

Eleven Israeli soldiers were wounded in the fighting in the disputed Shebaa Farms border area, seized by Israel from  Syria in 1967 and now claimed by Lebanon with the backing of Damascus.