Report: Israel killed Samir Kuntar in a suburb near Damascus

Various reports in Syria that Israel liquidated tonight (Saturday) Samir Kuntar, a senior Hezbollah released in the Regev and Goldwasser transaction, and is responsible for the brutal terrorist attack in Nahariya in 1979, killing four people.



In addition, reportedly Farrakhan Shaalan, the Syrian opposition military commander, was killed as well. The 'Resistance Army' is active in the Syrian Golan Heights, leans on Druze activists and is considered supportive of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Bassam Kuntar, Samir's brother, piped on his Twitter account that he holds that Samir has indeed been killed. Bassam wrote: "We are proud to belong to the family of the dead, after for three decades we belonged to the families of the prisoners". The Arab newspaper "Rai Alyoum" published in London, reported that Kuntar was eliminated by the Israeli air force in a six-storey building in the city of Jermaneh, a suburb of Damascus.

Walla News reported that three years ago Hezbollah gave the released prisoner Kuntar a mission to establish a new front against Israel and the Syrian Golan Heights. Apparently, the Lebanese group thought that his blood relations to the local Druze will assist him in achieving the goal. Kuntar was appointed in his capacity to formulate and fight the local Islamic resistance organization Jabhat al Nusra, and carry out violent activities against Israel.

Military analysts say that Kuntar was unable to cope with the close surveillance by Israeli intelligence and the strong defense line set by the Northern Command in the Golan Heights. In one case in 2014, although explosive devices were placed and caused serious injury to a paratrooper officer, but other efforts were thwarted. Kuntar's actions were not defined as a failure in public, but at the Khader village of Quneitra region arrived - presumably to take charge - Jihad Mughniyah, son of the head of the military wing of Hezbollah leader Imad Mughniyeh, who according to foreign reports was assassinated by Mossad in 2008.

As recalled, in April 1979 Kuntar, then a boy of sixteen and a half, led a squad of four terrorists from Lebanon, who belonged to the Palestine Liberation Front. At midnight they came to Nahariya in a rubber boat and went ashore. The squad shot at a police car, and subsequently killed policeman Eliyahu Shahar. They then broke into the apartment of the Haran family before police reinforcements arrived. They took as hostage Danny Haran, 31 along with his four year old daughter, Einat. The mother, Smadar, was able to hide in the intersol above the bedroom along with her two year old daughter, Yael, and a neighbor.

After the seizure of hostages, Danny and Einat were taken to the beach, where a fight broke out with police and soldiers. Samir Kuntar shot Danny Haran at close range in the back and killed him in front of his daughter Einat, and then killed Einat too, smashing her skill with the butt of his rifle against a rock. At their home, in the intrsol, Smadar's two year old daughter Yael was stangled, while her mother attempted to silence her being so they would not be detected by the cell.

In the exchange of fire on shore an Israeli policeman and two members of Kuntar's squad were killed. Kuntar and the fourth man of the squad, Ahmed Ebbers, were caught. The latter was released by Israel in the Jibril deal in 1985, in which 1,150 prisoners were released in exchange for three Israeli soldiers.

In June 2008, the Israeli government approved a prisoner exchange, in which Kuntar and 4 other prisoners were released. In return, Israel received from Hezbollah the bodies of two kidnapped Israeli soldiers Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser, and information about the captured navigator Ron Arad.

'בחדרי' גם ברשתות החברתיות - הצטרפו!