KIRYAT MOZKIN, July 16, 2008 (AFP) - The stark sight of two black coffins sparked anguish and tears among relatives of two missing Israeli soldiers on Wednesday -- the first evidence they had that the pair were dead.

Immediately after television channels aired the footage of Lebanese militant group Hezbollah handing over the caskets, neighbours and friends gathered outside missing serviceman Eldad Regev's family home lighting candles and quietly shedding tears.

Relatives had gathered at Regev's parents' house in Kiryat Mozkin, not far from the Lebanese border where the two soldiers were seized by Hezbollah in a deadly cross-border raid two years ago.

As the coffins were handed over, Regev's aunt Hana broke down and was treated by medics outside the home.

'Eldad! Eldad! What have they done to you?' she screamed.

The town's chief rabbi David Druckman was with the family as the news broke.

'This is the blackest of all black days from every aspect,' the rabbi said.

'I would not wish this on even my worst enemy. It is a tragic end to an agonising sequence of events.'

Just hours earlier, Regev's brother Eyal had still been clutching to the hope that, despite the assessment of Israeli government that the two soldiers were dead, they might just remain alive.

'We are aware of all the assessments but we still have a glimmer of hope,' the brother said.

There were similar scenes in the nearby town of Nahariya where the family of the other missing serviceman Ehud Goldwasser were holding a vigil.

The soldier's father Shlomo hit out at Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah for making the family wait for so long for confirmation of his death.

'If this is the biggest achievement of Nasrallah, keeping us in the dark until the last moment, so I will grant him this,' Shlomo Goldwasser said. 'I hope Nasrallah didn't sleep tonight.'

He blasted the hero's welcome being prepared in Lebanon for Samir Kantar, a Lebanese fighter with a Palestinian faction who was among the Lebanese prisoners being exchanged for the two Israelis.

Kantar received multiple jail terms for a 1979 commando raid in which three Israeli civilians, including a child, were killed in Nahariya, the same resort town where the Goldwassers live.

'The Lebanese people sacrificed almost 800 soldiers, its entire economy,' Shlomo Goldwasser said in allusion to the devastating 2006 war sparked by the capture of the two Israeli soldiers.

'For what? For the killer of a three-year-old girl? Is that a hero? For me he is nothing more than a little bigot.'