'Spy'-swap Egyptian prisoners return home

Israel has released 25 Egyptian prisoners in an exchange deal for a US-Israeli man accused of spying by Cairo and held in custody there since June.
The 25 prisoners, who had all been convicted of smuggling drugs or weapons or infiltrating Israel illegally, were greeted by crowds as they crossed into Egypt at the Taba border crossing after being transported there from prison in southern Israel earlier in the day.
TV footage showed some of the Egyptian men kneeling to kiss the asphalt after crossing through a blue metal gate at the border crossing.
Al Jazeera's Sherine Tadros, reporting from Taba, said the prisoners were going to to a nearby hotel and would hold a news conference there.
Grapel was flown from Cairo to Ben Gurion airport in Israel accompanied by envoys for Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister. Israel Hasson, an Israeli politician who travelled with Grapel on the flight, said before leaving the Egyptian capital that he looked fine and was smiling.
Al Jazeera's Tadros said the heads of various clans had checked lists to see if the names of those freed matched their faces. Among those released were teenagers that had been held for years, she said.
The exchange, reportedly mediated by the US, came after a successful Egyptian-negotiated swap between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas that freed Gilad Shalit, a captive Israeli soldier in return for more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners of whom around 400 have so far been released.
Tadros said there was also a domestic reason for the deal, adding that Egypt was "trying to score some points" by securing the release of the prisoners from Israeli custody.
Grapel, 27, was volunteering at a legal aid group in Cairo when he was arrested and accused of spying for Israel during the uprising that overthrew Hosni Mubarak, Egypt's former president, in February. Israel denied the espionage allegations, as did Grapel's family and friends.
Grapel's arrest led to fears in Israel that relations with Egypt, the first Arab country to sign a peace deal with Israel in 1979, would sour following the fall of Mubarak.
Grapel made no secret of his Israeli background and entered Egypt under his real name. His Facebook page had photos of him in an Israeli military uniform.
Wounded in fighting
Grapel's sister, Michal, told Israel's Army Radio that their mother, who lives in Queens, New York City, had flown to the region to meet her son after he arrived in Israel.
She would fly back with him to the US where he is studying law, at an unspecified date, the sister said.
Grapel moved to Israel, where his grandparents live, as a young man. He did his compulsory military service in Israel during its 2006 war in Lebanon and was wounded in the fighting. He later returned to the US to study.
At the time of his arrest he was doing a legal internship with a local nonprofit organisation in Cairo and planned afterwards to return to the US for his final year of law school.