Samir Kuntar - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Samir Kuntar (born July 20, 1962 in Abey

Abey

Abey also spelled Aabey is a Druze village located in Mount Lebanon, in Aley District of Mount Lebanon Governorate . It is located from Beirut and has an altitude of 800 m . It is bordered by Kfarmatta , Bennay , Damour , and Ain Ksour .It overlooks Damour and the capital Beirut and the sea can...

, Lebanon

Lebanon

Lebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...

) is a Lebanese Druze

Druze

The Druze are an esoteric, monotheistic religious community, found primarily in Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and Jordan, which emerged during the 11th century from Ismailism. The Druze have an eclectic set of beliefs that incorporate several elements from Abrahamic religions, Gnosticism, Neoplatonism...

convicted murderer and former member of the Palestine Liberation Front

Palestine Liberation Front

The Palestine Liberation Front is a Palestinian militant group, which is designated as a terrorist organization by Canada, the European Union and the USA. It is presently led by Dr. Wasel Abu Yousef.-Origins:...

. On April 22, 1979, at the age of 16, he participated in the attempted kidnapping of an Israel

Israel

The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

i family in Nahariya

Nahariya

Nahariya is the northernmost coastal city in Israel, with an estimated population of 51,200.-History:Nahariya was founded by German Jewish immigrants from the Fifth Aliyah in the 1930s...

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

Life imprisonment

Life imprisonment is a sentence of imprisonment for a serious crime under which the convicted person is to remain in jail for the rest of his or her life...

.

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

Israel

The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

, Kuntar is considered the perpetrator of one of the most brutal terrorist attacks in the country's history, while in Lebanon

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

Newsweek

Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...

states that the details of Kuntar's attack are "so sickening they give pause even to some of Israel's enemies." The Jerusalem Post

The Jerusalem Post

The Jerusalem Post is an Israeli daily English-language broadsheet newspaper, founded on December 1, 1932 by Gershon Agron as The Palestine Post. The daily readership numbers do not approach those of the major Hebrew newspapers....

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.

Early life

Kuntar was born to a Druze

Druze

family in Lebanon

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

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

Jordan

Jordan , officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan , Al-Mamlaka al-Urduniyya al-Hashemiyya) is a kingdom on the East Bank of the River Jordan. The country borders Saudi Arabia to the east and south-east, Iraq to the north-east, Syria to the north and the West Bank and Israel to the west, sharing...

and attempted to cross the Jordan river into Israel

Israel

The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

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

On April 22, 1979, at the age of 16, Samir Kuntar led a group of four PLF

Palestine Liberation Front

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

Abu Abbas

Muhammad Zaidan also known as Abū ‘Abbās or Muhammad ‘Abbās, was the founder and leader of paramilitary group the Palestine Liberation Front .- Political background :...

. The group departed from the seashore of Tyre in Southern Lebanon

Southern Lebanon

Southern Lebanon is the geographical area of Lebanon comprising the South Governorate and the Nabatiye Governorate. These two entities were divided from the same province in the early 1990s...

using a 55 horse-powered motorized rubber boat with an 88 km/h speed. The goal of the operation was to attack Nahariya

Nahariya

Nahariya is the northernmost coastal city in Israel, with an estimated population of 51,200.-History:Nahariya was founded by German Jewish immigrants from the Fifth Aliyah in the 1930s...

, 10 kilometers away from the Lebanese border. They named it "Operation Nasser".

Around midnight they arrived at the coastal town of Nahariya

Nahariya

Nahariya is the northernmost coastal city in Israel, with an estimated population of 51,200.-History:Nahariya was founded by German Jewish immigrants from the Fifth Aliyah in the 1930s...

. 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

Jibril Agreement

The Jibril Agreement was a prisoner exchange deal which took place on May 21, 1985 between the Israeli government, headed by Shimon Peres, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command...

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 [of the events] 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

Arab citizens of Israel

Arab citizens of Israel refers to citizens of Israel who are not Jewish, and whose cultural and linguistic heritage or ethnic identity is 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

Acre, Israel

Acre , is a city in the Western Galilee region of northern Israel at the northern extremity of Haifa Bay. Acre is one of the oldest continuously inhabited sites in the country....

, now residing in Ramallah

Ramallah

Ramallah is a Palestinian city in the central West Bank located 10 kilometers north of Jerusalem, adjacent to al-Bireh. It currently serves as the de facto administrative capital of the Palestinian National Authority...

, who was then serving a life sentence for her activities in the Palestine Liberation Front

Palestine Liberation Front

. They had no children.
In addition, while in prison Kuntar graduated from the Open University of Israel

Open University of Israel

The Open University of Israel is a distance-education university in Israel. , the Open University taught around 39,000 students.The Open University of Israel has more students than any other academic institution in Israel. The administration is based in the city of Ra'anana. Students from all over...

with a degree in Social and Political Science.

Negotiations for release

Several years later, the Palestinian Liberation Front seized the Achille Lauro
MS Achille Lauro
MS Achille Lauro was a cruise ship based in Naples, Italy. Built between 1939 and 1947 as MS Willem Ruys, a passenger liner for the Rotterdamsche Lloyd. It is most remembered for its 1985 hijacking...

, 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

Leon Klinghoffer

Leon Klinghoffer was a disabled American appliance manufacturer who was murdered and thrown overboard by Palestinian terrorists in the hijacking of the cruise ship Achille Lauro in 1985.-Hijacking and murder:...

, 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

Hassan Nasrallah

Hasan Nasrallah, became the third Secretary General of the Lebanese political and paramilitary organization Hezbollah after Israel assassinated the previous leader, Abbas al-Musawi, in 1992. Hezbollah in its entirety is considered a terrorist organization by The United States, the Netherlands,...

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 prisoner deal 'not enough'", BBC News
BBC News
BBC News is the department of the British Broadcasting Corporation responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs. The department is the world's largest broadcast news organisation and generates about 120 hours of radio and television output each day, as well as online...

, November 10, 2003.

Israel then agreed to release Samir Kuntar on condition that Hezbollah provided "solid evidence" as to the fate of Ron Arad

Ron Arad (pilot)

Lieutenant Colonel Ron Arad , was an Israeli Air Force weapon systems officer who is officially classified as missing in action since October 1986, but is widely presumed dead...

, an air force navigator missing in Lebanon since 1986.

Inspired by the prisoner swap, Hamas

Hamas

Hamas is the Palestinian Sunni Islamic or Islamist political party that governs the Gaza Strip. Hamas also has a military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades...

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

Fouad Siniora

Fuad Siniora is a Lebanese politician, a former Prime Minister of Lebanon, a position he held from 19 July 2005 to May 25, 2008 the date of the election of the new President of Lebanon; he was renominated to the post on 28 May 2008 and held the post as Acting President between those...

and UN envoy Terje Rød-Larsen

Terje Rød-Larsen

Terje Rød-Larsen is a Norwegian diplomat, politician and sociologist.He came to wide international prominence as a key figure in the negotiations that led to the Oslo Accords, when he served as the Director of the Fafo institute...

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, Though Hezbollah was not disarmed and Hezbollah was not removed from the border areas.

Prisoner exchange deal

On May 26, 2008, Israeli sources announced that Samir Kuntar was among those who would be exchanged for the bodies of two reservists, Eldad Regev

Eldad Regev

Eldad Regev was an Israeli soldier, born in Qiryat Motzkin, abducted by Hezbollah members along with Ehud Goldwasser on July 12, 2006, in Israel near the Lebanese border, sparking the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict. His rank was Sergeant First Class....

and Ehud Goldwasser

Ehud Goldwasser

Ehud Goldwasser was an Israeli soldier who was abducted in Israel by Hezbollah along with Eldad Regev on 12 July 2006, sparking the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict. His rank was First Sergeant....

, captured by Hezbollah in the Zar'it-Shtula incident

Zar'it-Shtula incident

The 2006 Hezbollah cross-border raid was a cross-border attack committed by Lebanon-based Hezbollah militants on an Israeli military patrol on 12 July 2006 on Israeli territory....

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 Israel

Israel

The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

i soldiers Ehud Goldwasser

Ehud Goldwasser

Ehud Goldwasser was an Israeli soldier who was abducted in Israel by Hezbollah along with Eldad Regev on 12 July 2006, sparking the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict. His rank was First Sergeant....

and Eldad Regev

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

Nabih Berri

Nabih Berri is the Speaker of the Parliament of Lebanon. He heads the mostly Shi'a Amal Movement.-Biography:He was born in Bo, Sierra Leone to Lebanese parents. He went to school in Tebnine and Ain Ebel in southern Lebanon and later studied at the Makassed and the Ecole de la Sagesse in Beirut...

, some members of the Parliament of Lebanon, and Muslim and Christian clerics.

A public celebration was organized by Hezbollah in Dahieh

Dahieh

Dahieh -2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict:On July 13, 2006, Israeli jets dropped leaflets over Dahieh warning residents to evacuate the area before carpet-bombing the neighborhood to rubble. However, not everyone managed to flee the town, and those who did escape became refugees within the mainland...

(the Hezbollah stronghold in Beirut

Beirut

Beirut is the capital and largest city of Lebanon, with a population ranging from 1 million to more than 2 million . Located on a peninsula at the midpoint of Lebanon's Mediterranean coastline, it serves as the country's largest and main seaport, and also forms the Beirut Metropolitan...

) where Hassan Nasrallah

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

Aabey

Aabey also spelled Abey is a village located in Mount Lebanon, in Aley District of Mount Lebanon Governorate . It is located from Beirut and has an altitude of 800 m . It is bordered by Kfarmatta , Bennay , Damour , and Ain Ksour .It overlooks Damour and the capital Beirut and the sea can be seen...

, southeast of Beirut. The ceremony was addressed by Progressive Socialist Party

Progressive Socialist Party

The Progressive Socialist Party or PSP , also known as Parti Socialiste Progressiste in French, is a political party in Lebanon. Its current leader is Walid Jumblatt...

leader Walid Jumblatt

Walid Jumblatt

Walid Jumblatt is a Lebanese politician and the current leader of the Progressive Socialist Party . He is the most prominent leader of Lebanon's Druze community.-Family:...

and the Labour Minister and Hezbollah official Mohammad Fneish.

On July 19, 2008, Al Jazeera

Al Jazeera

Al Jazeera is an independent broadcaster owned by the state of Qatar through the Qatar Media Corporation and headquartered in Doha, Qatar...

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 November 24, 2008, Kuntar visited Syria

Syria

Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....

, where he met with president Bashar Assad. Assad awarded him Syria's highest medal, the Syrian Order of Merit. Kuntar also visited Druze

Druze

communities in the Syrian controlled Golan Heights. At the ceasefire line

Purple Line (border)

The purple line was the ceasefire line between Israel and Syria after the 1967 Six Day War.-History:Syria gained independence from France in 1946 and on May 14, 1948 the British withdrew from Palestine as Israel declared its independence. Syrian forces participated in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War...

with Israel, he used the opportunity to express solidarity with the Druze community in the Israeli-occupied

Israeli-occupied territories

The Israeli-occupied territories are the territories which have been designated as occupied territory by the United Nations and other international organizations, governments and others to refer to the territory seized by Israel during the Six-Day War of 1967 from Egypt, Jordan, and Syria...

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.”

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

Al-Manar

Al-Manar is a Lebanese satellite television station affiliated with Hezbollah, registered as Lebanese Media Group Company, broadcasting from Beirut, Lebanon. It has an offering a "rich menu" of high production news, commentary, and entertainment. The self-proclaimed "Station of the Resistance" ,...

, 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 [body] 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 was asked how he viewed the assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1981. Kuntar stated that: "[The assassination of Sadat was] 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."

Travel restrictions

He is on the list of individuals banned from entering the United Kingdom.

External links

Samir Kuntar is a convicted murderer and not a hero - Ya Libnan
Ya Libnan
Ya Libnan Oh Lebanon, is a Lebanese media outlet that delivers English-language news from Beirut to an international audience. Ya Libnan was founded by volunteers in Lebanon immediately after the assassination of Rafik Hariri on February 14, 2005...
Samir Quntar and the Narcissism of Hezbollah (The Islamic Counterterrorism Center)
http://web.archive.org/web/20070817040847/http://www.samirkuntar.org/ Snapshot of Samir Kuntar family website archive on August 17, 2007
Plot to free terrorist may have led to fight (Washington Times 8/8/2006)
Israel's Deadly Prisoner Deal (Front Page magazine)
The murder, described by Smadar Haran - the only member of the Haran family who survived (Washington Post article: "The World Should Know What He Did to My Family")
"Hizballah Wants Israel to Free Child-Killer" (Cybercast News Service, July 18, 2006)
Video: Why We Fight - Israel, Hizbollah and Samir Kuntar (on youtube.com)
Prisoner Exchange reports
CNSNews.com
Video: Palestinian and Lebanese Prisoners in Israeli Jails (on youtube.com)
Israeli site about the Lebanese terrorist, Samir Kuntar.
Nasrallah says no deal without Samir (BBC article "Nasrallah demands militant freed", September 12, 2006)
Israel okays deal despite assessments troops are dead (Jerusalem Post "The cabinet debated the deal for nearly six hours before the vote, which was approved 22-3...", June 29, 2008)
Video: '"Samir Kuntar - A new Hero!! " (A video posted by the Israeli government on youtube.com, can also be found on http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1002752.html)
Video: excerpt from "MABAT", Israeli TV channel 1 news (the funeral of Danny, Einat, and Yael Haran, including speech of Prime-Minister Menachem Begin
Menachem Begin
' was a politician, founder of Likud and the sixth Prime Minister of the State of Israel. Before independence, he was the leader of the Zionist militant group Irgun, the Revisionist breakaway from the larger Jewish paramilitary organization Haganah. He proclaimed a revolt, on 1 February 1944,...

- on youtube.com in Hebrew)

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Early life

Hijack attempt

Raid from Southern Lebanon

Shootout and killings

Trial

Treatment in prison

Negotiations for release

Prisoner exchange deal

Reception in Lebanon

Reception in Syria

Statements following his release

Travel restrictions

See also

External links