The Story of the death of four year old Yael Haran share this story with the whole world. No family of God deserves the death this family got. Samir Kuntar is no war hero he is a murderer Samir Kuntar (Arabic: سمير القنطار, also transcribed Sameer, Kantar, Quntar, Qantar) (born July 20, 1962 in Abey, Lebanon) is a Lebanese Druze former member of thePalestine Liberation Front. On April 22, 1979, at the age of 16, he participated in the attempted kidnapping of an Israeli family inNahariya that resulted in the deaths of four Israelis and two of his fellow kidnappers.[1]Kuntar and his team broke into an apartment building and kidnapped a young father, 31-year-old Danny Haran, and his 4-year-old daughter, Einat, taking them to a nearby beach. Kuntar was found guilty of murdering Haran in front of Einat, then turning to the child and crushing her skull against a rock with the butt of his rifle.[2] 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.[3] In 1980 Kuntar was sentenced to four life sentences.[3]Immediately after his arrest, Kuntar admitted to the killings,[4] 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.[5][6] An eyewitness testified to having seen Kuntar shoot Danny Haran, and forensic evidence presented at his trial showed that Einats brain tissue was found on his rifle.[7] 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 countrys history,[8] while in Lebanon, where Israels version of the events is disputed by many and it is denied that he killed the father and his daughter,[9][10] he is widely regarded as a national hero.[11]Newsweek states that the details of Kuntars attack are so sickening they give pause even to some of Israels enemies.[12] The Jerusalem Post states that exactly how popular Kuntar is in Lebanon is up for some debate.[13]In November 2008, Syrian president Bashar Assad presented Kuntar with a Syrian medal[14] and in early 2009 he was honored by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.[15] He is on a list of individuals banned from entering the United Kingdom. Early lifeEdit Kuntar was born to a Druze family inLebanon. 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.[16] Kuntar dropped out of school at 14 and underwent training in the camps of various Palestinian militant groups and became a member of the Palestine Liberation Front. His goal was to take part in an attack on Israel.[16]On March 2009 he married Zeineb Barjawi, the daughter of a prominent Lebanese family.[17] Hijack attemptEdit On January 31, 1978 Samir Kuntar and three additional militants from his organization attempted to hijack an Israeli bus running the line between Beit Shean 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 Israelby 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.[18] Raid from Southern LebanonEdit Main article: 1979 Nahariya attackOn April 22, 1979, at the age of 16, Samir Kuntar led a group of four PLF militants who entered Israel from Lebanon by boat.[4] The group members included Abdel Majeed Aslan(born in 1955), Muhanna Salim Al-Muayyad(born in 1960) and Ahmad al-Abras (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.[19] 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. Shoot-out and killings Kuntars group took Danny and Einat down to the beach, where a shoot-out with Israeli policemen and soldiers erupted. According to the official Israeli version, when Kuntars group found that the rubber boat they had 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, he allegedly 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,[20][21] from where she saw Danny and Einat being led away at gunpoint by Kuntar. During the shoot-out a second policeman[citation needed] and another of Kuntars comrades were killed. Kuntar and the fourth member of the group, Ahmad Assad al-Abras, were injured and captured. al-Abras was freed by Israel in the prisoner exchange of May 1985. Trial al-Kuntar and al-Abras were charged with murder. During interrogation al-Kuntar had signed a confession accepting responsibility for the deaths of the policeman and of Danny and Einat Haran. At the trial, however, he denied killing either the father or the daughter. His defence claimed that he had been beaten in the detention center.al-Kuntar explained that the groups 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.[4]According to him Danny Haran suddenly rose up, shouting and signalling to the Israeli soldiers to stop shooting. Both of them were then hit by the soldiers’ bullets, killing Haran and seriously wounding al-Kuntar and rendering him unconscious. He claimed to have no knowledge of the fate of the girl.An anonymous prosecution witness confirmed that Haran had shouted to the soldiers cease your fire, dont shoot. My little girl is here but that al-Kuntar then shot him in the back. An Israeli doctor testified at the trial that the girl was killed by a blow from a blunt instrument, like a club or rifle butt. The pathologists report showed that Einats brain tissue was found on Kuntars rifle.Both al-Kuntar and al-Abras were convicted of murdering five people, two policemen and three members of the Haran family. They were sentenced to five life sentences, and an additional 47 years for injuries inflicted. The court file containing the evidence submitted and the court proceedings was declared top secret and no one, with the exception of the pardons committee, was allowed to access the file for almost 30 years. [4] A few days before al-Kuntar’s expected release in the2008 prisoner exchange Yedioth Aharonoth was finally given access to Court File No. 578/79, with two notable exception. The newspaper was still denied access to the pathological report and the testimony of one person, the very evidence that allegedly established the responsibility of al-Kuntar for the deaths of Danny and Einat Haran.At his trial, and consistently thereafter, al-Kuntar denied killing the 4-year-old or her father.[22] He told his detailed version of the events to Maariv correspondent Chen Kotes-Bar. [19] According to a former cellmate, Yasser Hanjar, al-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.[23] After his release, al-Kuntar accused the Israeli government of fabricating the story of how he killed the child.[24]Not everyone in Israel was convinced of al-Kuntar’s guilt. Psychologist and former senior police officer Zvi Sela denied that al-Kuntar had killed the Haran family. Between 1995 and 1998 he served as Chief Intelligence Officer of the Israel Prisons Service and met al-Kuntar in prison in this capacity. In an interview with Haaretz he claimed:We turned Kuntar into God-knows-what - the murderer of Danny Haran and his daughter, Einat. The man who smashed in the girls head. Thats nonsense. A story. A fairy tale. He told me he didnt do it and I believe him. I investigated the event… and in my opinion there is support for the fact that they were killed by fire from the Israeli rescue forces. You can accuse him all you like, but it was obviously the rescue forces that opened fire.[25] Treatment in prisonEdit During his imprisonment, Kuntar married Kifah Kayyal (born in 1963), an Israeli Arabwoman 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.[21]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.[26]They had no children. In addition, while in prison Kuntar participated in a program under which Palestinian security prisoners took online courses from the Open University of Israel, and graduated with a Bachelors degree in Social and Political Science.[27] Negotiations for releaseEdit 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 businessmanElchanan 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. Hezbollahs conditions have become clear and defined, and we are sticking to them in all circumstances, Nasrallah declared in his statement.[28][29]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.[30]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.[31]In 2006, Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora and UN envoy Terje Rød-Larsenproposed 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 countrys 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.[32] Prisoner exchange dealEdit Main article: 2008 Israel–Hezbollah prisoner swapOn May 26, 2008, Israeli sources announced that Samir Kuntar was among those who would be exchanged for the bodies of two reservists, Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser, captured by Hezbollah in the Zarit-Shtula incident that sparked the 2006 Lebanon War.[33] 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.[34] 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.[35]On July 16, 2008, Hezbollah transferred coffins containing the remains of capturedIsraeli soldiers Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev,[36] in exchange for Kuntar and four Hezbollah members taken prisoner during the2006 Lebanon War.[37] Reception in LebanonEdit 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.[38]A public celebration was organized byHezbollah in Dahieh (the Hezbollahstronghold in Beirut) where Hassan Nasrallahgave 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 Kuntars native village of Aabey, southeast of Beirut. The ceremony was addressed byProgressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblatt and the Labour Minister andHezbollah official Mohammad Fneish.[39]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 Jazeeras 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, Israels Government Press Office (GPO) threatened to boycott the satellite channel unless it apologized. A few days later an official letter was issued by Al Jazeeras director general, Khanfar Wadah, in which he admitted that the program violated the stations Code of Ethics and that he had ordered the channels programming director to take steps to ensure that such an incident does not recur.[40][41][42] Reception in SyriaEdit On November 24, 2008, Kuntar visited Syria, where he met with president Bashar Assad. Assad awarded him the Syrian Order of Merit. Kuntar also visited Druze communities in the Syrian controlled Golan Heights. At theceasefire line with Israel, he used the opportunity to express solidarity with the Druze community in the Israeli-occupiedGolan 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.”[43][44] Statements following his releaseEdit Since his release, Kuntar has made a number of statements on certain elements of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.Prisoner exchange dealIn an interview to Al-Manar, Hezbollahs satellite television network, Kuntar said: Im jealous of the Zionists, who dont 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.[45]New attacks against IsraelIn 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 its better to get rid of it.[46] In a subsequent interview, Kuntar stated that and God willing, I will get the chance to kill more Israelis.[46]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.[47]Attacks on Israeli civiliansIn 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.[48]Assassination of Anwar SadatIn 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.[48] Travel restrictionsEdit He is on the list of individuals banned from entering the United Kingdom.[49]
Posted on: Tue, 22 Oct 2013 04:22:10 +0000