Lebanese Hizbollah militant leader Samir Qantar was killed in an Israeli air strike in Damascus, the Lebanese group and Syrian government sources said.
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Kuntar was one of the most hated terrorists in Israel after he murdered an Israeli father in front of his four-year-old daughter on a beach in the northern Israeli town of Nahariya on April 22, 1979.
A Hezbollah commander whom Israel reluctantly released in 2008 – almost 30 years after he took part in a notorious terrorist attack – was killed in an airstrike in Syria, Hezbollah and his family said Sunday.
The rockets are the first of its kind in over a year, after the last major confrontation between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah in 2006.
Lebanon’s Shia movement Hezbollah was today organising the funeral in Beirut of controversial militant Samir Kantar who was killed in a suspected Israeli air strike in Damascus.
Israeli did not claim responsibility for the strikes, but media reports on Sunday quoted Hezbollah’s al Manner TV that Kuntar was killed in an Israeli raid near the Syrian capital. There was no confirmation that the rocket attacks were linked to the Hezbollah threat.
In a Sunday statement, the Lebanese armed group declared that Kuntar had been “martyred” in a “Zionist airstrike”.
Unlike many reports in Israeli and foreign media, which tied Kantar to Hezbollah, Harel says Kantar was not so much connected to them in the past few months.
“Death to Israel”, the men shouted as women threw rice and rose petals at the coffin.
This would lead him, in 1976, to join the Palestinian Liberation Front (PLF)-a minor armed group that has variously joined and broken apart from several leftist Palestinian groups throughout the years. “I believe that Israel would not use a fighter jet since they had to consult with Russian Federation, so what most likely happened is the use of a drone to hit a determined target”, he said. As the attack unfolded, the girl’s mother hid inside a crawl space inside their home and accidentally smothered their crying two-year-old daughter, fearing Kantar would find them. Israeli Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked accused Qantar of overseeing covert Hezbollah entrenchment on the Golan Heights, a strategic plateau overlooking northeastern Israel.
The Israeli military responded with artillery fire into southern Lebanon after rockets were fired at Israel from its northern neighbor, according to a statement from the Israeli Defense Forces.
The New York Times cited Amidror’s assessment in its initial coverage of Kuntar’s killing, noting the extent of the terrorist leader’s involvement in expanding Hezbollah’s operations against Israel.
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Israeli has neither confirmed nor denied that it was behind Kantar’s assassination. Hezbollah is reported to support the regime of Assad by sending troops to fight against insurgents, such as ISIS.
