TerrorismNotorious Hezbollah militant killed in Israeli attack in Damascus

Israeli planes fired four missiles Saturday on a six-story building in the suburb of Jaramana on the outskirts of Damascus, killing Samir Qantar, a Lebanese Druze who, as a 16-year old in 1979, took part in one of the most notorious raids by Palestinian terrorists.

He spent nearly thirty years in an Israeli jail, and was released in 2008 as part of an exchange agreement with Hezbollah.

Qantar, who became a high-level Hezbollah operative after his release, was one of nine Hezbollah officers killed when the building was destroyed.

Hezbollah confirmed his death, and the death of the others.

Israel, as is its habit in such cases, has not confirmed or denied the attack.

The Telegraph reports that Qantar was sentenced to three life terms after he and three other Lebanese men used a small boat to sail from Lebanon to the coastal Israeli town of Nahariya. They killed a policeman and then kidnapped a man and his four-year-old daughter. Israeli military units exchanged fire with the terrorists, who eventually ran out of ammunition. Qantar used the last bullet in his magazine to kill the man, and then, realizing he had no more bullets, smashed the head of the four year old with the butt of his rifle, before surrendering.

While Qantar and the three other men were searching for hostages, the girl’s mother, Smadar Haran, hid inside a crawl space inside their home and accidentally suffocated their crying two-year-old daughter, fearing Qantar would find them.

When Qantar was released in July 2008, he received a hero’s welcome by Hezbollah.

Qantar’s connections in the Druze community of Lebanon and Syria proved useful to Hezbollah and Iran after the growing involvement of both in the Syrian war in an effort to save the regime of Bashar al-Assad.

Yaakov Amidror, a former director of the Israeli counter-terrorism bureau, told the Guardian that Qantar had been operating in the northern Golan Heights and was planning attacks on Israel before his death. Amidror said: “As most of the villages on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights were Druze, it was easy for Hezbollah to bring in an actor who is a Druze and who has good relations there. He was very active, not alone, with other members of Hezbollah.”

Hezbollah’s al-Mayadeen TV station said Farhan al-Shaalan, a senior commander with the anti-Israeli “resistance” movement in the Golan Heights, was also killed in the incident, together with an aide to Qantar.