Samir Kuntar - "Murderer of Nahariyah" Dead at last

Earlier in the month of July (2015) there had been a previous report of the neutralizing of the "Murderer of Nahariyah" Samir Kuntar  by an Israeli drone attack on a vehicle  at the entrance of the Druze village of Hader, in Quneitra Province.

At that time in a previous Blog entry of mine I had my suspicions that the report which was being spred through out the Social Media were not correct. I had written; "It is NOT YET confirmed that  Samir  Kuntar from Abey Mount, Lebanon was among those killed."

According to Hezbollah's mouthpiece Al-Manar, thirty-six years after murdering the Haran family and the Israeli policeman  Eliyahu Shachar  in a vicious terror attack in Nahariya, senior Hezbollah leader Samir Kuntar was killed in an airstrike on Saturday night, which the Lebanese terror organization attributed to the Israel Air Force. Two IAF jets infiltrated Syrian airspace and launched four long-range missiles at a six-floor high building in Jaramana, on the southern outskirts of Damascus, destroying the building and causing damage to surrounding structures.

According to reports in the Arab media, eight others were killed in the attack, including Farhan al-Shaalan, another senior leader who planned terror attacks against Israelis in the Syrian Golan Heights.
"At 10:15pm on Saturday December 19, Zionist warplanes struck a residential building in Jaramana city in Damascus countryside. The Dean of liberated detainees from Israeli prisons, brother Mujahid Samir Kuntar was martyred along with several Syrian citizens in the strike," Hezbollah said in a statement.
The Syrian government released a condemnation of "the terror attack that led to the death of innocent civilians in Jaramana, including the warrior Samir Kuntar."

The Murderer of Nahariyah

In 1979, when Kuntar was 16 years old, he infiltrated Israel on a rubber boat from Lebanon along with three other terrorists from the "Palestine Liberation Front." The four came ashore in Nahariya, shot dead police officer Eliyahu Shahar and broke into the apartment of the Haran family. There, they took Danny Haran and his four-year-old daughter Einat hostage, while mother Smadar hid in a crawl space with two-year-old daughter Yael.

Father Danny and daughter Einat were taken ashore, where a firefight ensued between the terrorists and police officers who arrived at the scene. Kuntar shot Danny Haran to death, and then cruelly smashed Einat's skull with the butt of his rifle, murdering her as well.
Two-year-old Yael was accidentally smothered to death while her mother was trying to stop her from crying and revealing their hiding place.
Another police officer was killed, along with two of Kuntar's cell members, in the gunfire that ensued.

Kuntar was jailed for almost 30 years, for which he was known in Lebanon as "The Dean of Lebanese Prisoners" for being the longest-held prisoner in Israel, and was freed in a prisoner exchange between Israel and Hezbollah in 2008, for the IDF soldiers Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser, whose condition was unknown and cynically withheld from Israel during the negotiations. Hezbollah kept a vision of their being alive until the very last moment when the coffins were brought to the exchange point. Both had been reported to have been captured wounded but alive.

Upon his return to Lebanon Kuntar, 53, received a hero's welcome. Syrian President Assad awarded him the country's highest medal during a trip he made to Damascus that year.

In 2014, Kuntar, who is a Druze himself, was reportedly involved in attempts to recruit the Druze in Syria - both in the Golan Heights and in other areas - for a Druze militia to fight for the Assad regime, but these efforts were unsuccessful. As a Druse, Kuntar played a central role in Hezbollah and Iran's efforts to build up terrorist infrastructure in the Golan Heights in order to launch attacks against Israel, with recent reports in the Gulf States claiming Kuntar was in charge of the "Syrian Hezbollah."

Kuntar, recently gave an interview to the Lebanese Al Mayadeen TV channel, which is affiliated with Hezbollah. There he claimed that "Israel gives a lot of aid to the anti Assad fighters but they must not be too happy about that, because some of them will pay a very high price for it."

He was asked if he is worried of an attempt on his life, and answered that he was. "Even if they assassinate me or other resistance fighters, the Syrian resistance operation continues forward,"

In deference to the previous announcement in July 2015 this time Kuntar's his step-brother from his father's second wife Shiham acknowledged his death in a "Tweet"

If indeed Samir Kuntar was "neutralized" by Israel, it would bring some slight comfort to the Schachar and Haran families.