Israel’s horrifyingly bad decision to swap the remains of two Israeli soldiers for a savage child-murdering terrorist has been carried out.

And the child killer will receive a hero’s welcome in Lebanon.

Samir Kuntar and four other Lebanese prisoners will receive an official state welcoming when they are released by Israel.

The five men will be greeted at Beirut’s airport by Prime Minister Fuad Saniora and President Gen. Michel Suleiman. Later, a huge rally will be held in the capital’s southern suburbs where Hizbullah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah will speak, the group’s Al-Manar TV has said.

French news agency AFP reported that the coastal road from the Israeli border to the southern port city of Sidon had been covered with Hizbullah decorations, and hundreds of volunteers had been hanging banners to praise Hizbullah’s role in the prisoners’ release throughout the south of the country.

In Kuntar’s home in Abey, streets were decorated with banners welcoming the return of the former member of the radical Palestine Liberation Front. “Samir Kuntar is the conscience of Lebanon, Palestine and the Arab nation. Abey welcomes the hero, prisoner Samir Kuntar,” reads one sign.

Meanwhile, a senior Hizbullah official has said Israel’s approval of a prisoner swap with his group was an “official admission of defeat.”

Meanwhile, in Germany, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon said he was “encouraged by the prisoner swap and hoped that it was the first of many more.”