Samir Kuntar - Misplaced Pages

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Samir Kuntar (Template:Lang-ar, also transcribed Sameer, Kantar, Quntar, Qantar) (born July 20, 1962 in Abey, Lebanon) is a Lebanese Druze former member of the Palestine Liberation Front. On April 22, 1979, at the age of 16, he participated in the attempted kidnapping of an Israeli family in Nahariya that resulted in the deaths of four Israelis and two of his fellow kidnappers. Kuntar was convicted in an Israeli court for murder of an Israeli policeman, Eliyahu Shahar, 31 year-old Danny Haran, and Haran's 4-year-old daughter, Einat Haran, whom he killed with blunt force against a rock. He was also convicted of indirectly causing the death of two-year-old Yael Haran by suffocation, as her mother, Smadar, tried to quiet her crying while hiding from Kuntar. In 1980 Kuntar was sentenced to four life sentences.

Immediately after his arrest, Kuntar admitted to the killings, but at his sentence and thereafter he denied killing the father and daughter, saying that they had been killed by security forces in the ensuing gun battle. He did admit to taking them hostage and killing Eliyahu Shahar, however. An eyewitness testified to having seen Kuntar shoot Danny Haram, and forensic evidence presented at his trial showed that Einat's brain tissue was found on his rifle. He spent nearly three decades in prison before being released on July 16, 2008 as part of an Israel-Hezbollah prisoner swap.

In Israel, Kuntar is considered the perpetrator of one of the most brutal terrorist attacks in the country's history, while in Lebanon, where Israel's version of the events is disputed by many and it is denied that he killed the father and his daughter, he is widely regarded as a "national hero." Newsweek states that the details of Kuntar's attack are "so sickening they give pause even to some of Israel's enemies." The Jerusalem Post states that "exactly how popular Kuntar is in Lebanon is up for some debate."

In November 2008, Syrian president Bashar Assad presented Kuntar with Syria's highest medal. He is on a list of individuals banned from entering the United Kingdom, composed by the United Kingdom's Home Office and by Home Secretary Jacqui Smith.

Early life

Kuntar was born to a Druze family in Lebanon. His parents divorced soon after his birth and his mother died when he was a boy. The father remarried and moved to Saudi Arabia, leaving Samir in the care of his second wife, Siham, in Abey, a village southeast of Beirut. Kuntar dropped out of school at 14 and underwent training in the camps of various militant groups. His goal was to take part in an attack on Israel.

Hijack attempt

On January 31, 1978 Samir Kuntar and two additional militants from his organization attempted to hijack an Israeli bus running the line between Beit She'an and Tiberias in order to demand the release of militants imprisoned in Israel. They traveled to Jordan and attempted to cross the Jordan river into Israel by swimming. However, before crossing, they were arrested by the Jordanian intelligence. Kuntar spent 11 months in the Jordanian prison and was released on December 1978. He was banned from entering Jordan for three years.

Raid from Southern Lebanon

Main article: 1979 Nahariya attack

On April 22, 1979, at the age of 16, Samir Kuntar led a group of four PLF militants who entered Israel from Lebanon by boat. The group members included Abdel Majeed Asslan (born in 1955), Mhanna Salim Al-Muayed (born in 1960) and Ahmed AlAbras (born in 1949). They all belonged to the PLF under the leadership of Abu Abbas. The group departed from the seashore of Tyre in Southern Lebanon using a 55 horse-powered motorized rubber boat with an 88 km/h speed. The goal of the operation was to attack Nahariya, 10 kilometers away from the Lebanese border. They named it "Operation Nasser".

Around midnight they arrived at the coastal town of Nahariya. The four killed a policeman, Eliyahu Shahar, who came across them. The group then entered a building on Jabotinsky Street where they formed two groups. One group broke into the apartment of the Haran family before police reinforcements had arrived. They took 31 year-old Danny Haran hostage along with his four year-old daughter, Einat. According to Samir Kuntar, Danny Haran would not let go of his daughter and come with them alone. The mother, Smadar Haran, was able to hide in a crawl space above the bedroom with her two year-old daughter Yael, and a neighbor.

Shootout and killings

Israeli witnesses said that Kuntar's group took Danny and Einat down to the beach, where a shootout with Israeli policemen and soldiers erupted. According to the witnesses, when Kuntar's group found that the rubber boat they'd arrived in was disabled by gunfire, Kuntar shot Danny at close range in the back, in front of his daughter, and drowned him in the sea to ensure he was dead. Next, eyewitnesses said he smashed the head of 4 year-old Einat on beach rocks and crushed her skull with the butt of his rifle. Smadar Haran accidentally suffocated Yael to death while attempting to quiet her whimpering, which would have revealed their hiding place, from where she saw Danny and Einat being led away at gunpoint by Kuntar. During the shootout a policeman and two of Kuntar's comrades were killed; Kuntar and the fourth member of the group, Ahmed Assad Abras, were captured. Abras was freed by Israel in the Jibril Agreement of May 1985.

Trial

Kuntar was tried and convicted of murdering five people by an Israeli court in 1980, and sentenced to five life sentences (one for each murder), and an additional 47 years for injuries inflicted. On July 13, 2008, after being classified for nearly thirty years, File No. 578/79, containing the evidence and testimony from Kuntar's 1980 trial, was first published.

Evidence presented by the pathologist at the trial showed that Einat Haran was killed by the force of a blunt instrument - most likely a rifle butt. The pathologist's report also showed that Einat's brain tissue was found on Kuntar's rifle.

According to the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Kuntar had initially admitted to bludgeoning Einat to death after being captured, but at his trial, and consistently thereafter, he denied killing the 4-year-old. In his testimony, Kuntar asserted that Israeli gunfire had killed Danny Haran as soldiers burst in to free him, and that he did not see what happened to Einat after passing out from blood lost from five bullet wounds. He explained that the group's goal had been to take hostages back to Lebanon, and that he had taken the 4-year-old to prevent Israeli police from shooting at them. According to his former cellmate, Yasser Hanjar, Kuntar "never expressed remorse, but maintains a different version than the Israeli one", that he only wanted to take the Israeli family hostage, and that he "firmly rejected allegations he had smashed the head of 4-year-old Einat Haran."

After his release, Kuntar accused the Israeli government of fabricating the story of how he killed the child.

Treatment in prison

During his imprisonment, Kuntar married Kifah Kayyal (born in 1963), an Israeli Arab woman who is an activist on behalf of militant prisoners. They later divorced. While they were married, she received a monthly stipend from the Israeli government, an entitlement due to her status as a wife of a prisoner. Kayyal is an Israeli citizen of Palestinian origin from Acre, now residing in Ramallah, who was then serving a life sentence for her activities in the Palestine Liberation Front. They had no children. In addition, while in prison Kuntar graduated from the Open University of Israel with a degree in Social and Political Science.

Negotiations for release

Several years later, the Palestinian Liberation Front seized the Achille Lauro, an Italian cruise ship, demanding that Israel release Kuntar, along with 50 Palestinian prisoners, though Kuntar was the only prisoner specifically named. The hijackers killed a wheelchair-using Jewish American passenger, Leon Klinghoffer, during this raid and had his body and wheelchair thrown overboard.

In 2003, Israel agreed to release around 400 prisoners in exchange for businessman Elchanan Tenenbaum and the bodies of three soldiers held by Hezbollah since 2000. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah refused to accept the deal unless it included Samir Kuntar. "Hezbollah's conditions have become clear and defined, and we are sticking to them in all circumstances", Nasrallah declared in his statement.

Israel then agreed to release Samir Kuntar on condition that Hezbollah provided "solid evidence" as to the fate of Ron Arad, an air force navigator missing in Lebanon since 1986.

Inspired by the prisoner swap, Hamas vowed, a few days later, that they would also abduct Israeli soldiers to secure the release of Palestinian prisoners. Hassan Nasrallah simultaneously told his supporters that Hezbollah would continue to kidnap Israelis until "not a single prisoner" remained inside Israeli jails.

In 2006, Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora and UN envoy Terje Rød-Larsen proposed a deal in which Kuntar and all other Lebanese prisoners would be released on condition that Syria declared Shebaa farms as Lebanese territory, the Lebanese deployed troops on the country's southern border with Israel, Israel withdrew from Shebaa farms and the Israeli air force stopped flying over Lebanon, Israeli occupation ended, Hezbollah was disarmed and Hezbollah was removed from the border areas.

Prisoner exchange deal

Main article: 2008 Israel–Hezbollah prisoner swap

On May 26, 2008, Israeli sources announced that Samir Kuntar was among those who would be exchanged for the two reservists, Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser, captured by Hezbollah in the Zar'it-Shtula incident that sparked the 2006 Lebanon War. On June 29, 2008 the Israeli ministers cabinet approved the prisoner exchange between Hezbollah and Israel which would involve the release of Kuntar despite intelligence stating that the two soldiers are almost certainly dead. Kuntar and four other prisoners being released as part of the deal are the last of the Lebanese prisoners in Israeli custody. Also part of the deal would be the release of the remains of other Lebanese from all other previous wars and, after a suitable interval, dozens of Palestinian prisoners.

On July 16, 2008, Hezbollah transferred coffins containing the remains of captured Israeli soldiers Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, in exchange for Kuntar and four Hezbollah members taken prisoner during the 2006 Lebanon War.

Reception in Lebanon

Upon the arrival of Samir Kuntar, along with four other freed Lebanese prisoners, to Beirut airport, Kuntar was officially received by the Lebanese President Michel Sleiman, Prime Minister Fuad Saniora, Speaker of the Parliament of Lebanon Nabih Berri, some members of the Parliament of Lebanon, and Muslim and Christian clerics.

A public celebration was organized by Hezbollah in Dahieh (the Hezbollah stronghold in Beirut) where Hassan Nasrallah gave a welcoming speech to Kuntar.

On July 17, 2008, Kuntar paid tribute at the tomb of Imad Mughniyeh. Later that day, a homecoming function was organized in Kuntar's native village of Aabey, southeast of Beirut. The ceremony was addressed by Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblatt and the Labour Minister and Hezbollah official Mohammad Fneish.

On July 19, 2008, Al Jazeera TV broadcast a program from Lebanon that covered the "welcome-home" festivities for Samir Kuntar. In the program, the head of Al Jazeera's Beirut office, Ghassan bin Jiddo, lavished praise on Kuntar by calling him a "pan-Arab hero" and organized a birthday party for him. In response, Israel's Government Press Office (GPO) threatened to boycott the satellite channel unless it apologized. A few days later an official letter was issued by Al Jazeera's director general, Khanfar Wadah, in which he admitted that the program violated the station's Code of Ethics and that he had ordered the channel's programming director to take steps to ensure that such an incident does not recur.

Reception in Syria

On Nov. 24, 2008, Kuntar visited Syria, where he met with president Bashar Assad. Assad awarded him Syria's highest medal, the Syrian Order of Merit. Kuntar also visited Druze communities in the Syrian controlled Golan Heights. At the ceasefire line with Israel, he used the opportunity to express solidarity with the Druze community in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights: “President Bashar Assad has promised me that he will help you,” Kuntar said. “I say to you, soon president Assad will fly the Syrian flag over the Golan.”

Kuntar's announcement was praised by Arab Members of the Knesset Said Nafa and Sheikh Raed Salah.

Statements Following his Release

Since his release, Kuntar has made a number of statements on certain elements of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Prisoner exchange deal

In an interview to Al-Manar, Hezbollah's satellite television network, Kuntar said: "I'm jealous of the Zionists, who don't spare any effort in bringing back captured soldiers or soldiers' bodies. Seriously, we are jealous of our enemy and its care for a and how it goes to the end of the world in order to return it, and of its concerns for captives and how it will go to the very edge to bring them back."

New attacks against Israel

In an interview with Al-Jadid TV, which aired July 18, 2008 (as translated by the MEMRI), Kuntar stated that: "There is a disease in this region called "the state of Israel," which we refer to as "the plundering entity." If we do not put an end to this disease, it will follow us, even if we flee to the end of the world. So it's better to get rid of it." In a subsequent interview, Kuntar stated that "and God willing, I will get the chance to kill more Israelis."

In an interview with the French Press Agency in October 2008, Kuntar stated that "The resistance will end only when the Zionist entity disappears." He also claimed that Israel is preparing to attack Lebanon again and that "Israel is going to suffer great losses. The idea that Israel is an invincible, secure state has become a myth.

Attacks on Israeli civilians

In an interview with Al-Jazeera TV and Al-Jadid/New TV, which aired July 26, 2008 (as translated by the MEMRI), Kuntar stated that: "To be honest, our operation had both civilian and military targets. Today, tomorrow, and the next day – our targets are always... There are no civilian targets – it’s “civilian” in quotation marks. The Zionists themselves define the Israeli as a soldier who is on leave for 11 months every year."

Assassination of Anwar Sadat

In an interview with Al-Jazeera TV and Al-Jadid/New TV, which aired July 26, 2008 (as translated by the MEMRI), Kuntar asked how he viewed the assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1981. Kuntar stated that: " a most wonderful operation – to the point that all the prisoners cheered together when Sadat was assassinated. This man symbolized treason and apostasy. Ever since Camp David... Look at the history – Camp David, the 1982 invasion, and then the strike against Iraq... All the catastrophes that befell the Arab world began with Camp David. It was a wonderful historical moment, which I hope will recur in similar cases."