30 July 2017•Update: 31 July 2017
By Waseem Saif al-Din
BEIRUT
Hezbollah and Jabhat Fateh al-Sham will exchange the corpses of fighters on Sunday as part of a cease-fire between the two groups, Hezbollah-affiliated Al-Manar television station said.
The television station said the swap was the first stage of the cease-fire, which came into effect on Thursday in the border area between Lebanon and Syria.
The cease-fire deal in the town of Juroud includes the exit of Jabhat Fateh al-Sham fighters, formerly Nusra Front, in return for the release of three Hezbollah fighters who were captured while battling alongside Syrian regime forces in the Syrian Tel el-Ais region in 2016.
Backed by Syrian regime’s Air Force, Hezbollah began fighting in Juroud Arsal on July 19 against various Syrian armed groups, including the Jabhat Fateh al-Sham and managed to make several gains.
Since the beginning of , human rights groups expressed concerns about the 100,000 Syrian refugees living in the region.
Syria has been locked in a vicious civil war since early 2011 when the Bashar al-Assad regime cracked down on pro-democracy protests with unexpected ferocity.
Hundreds of thousands of Syrian civilians are believed to have been killed to date.
