The Jerusalem Post reports that Israel is not ruling out releasing one of the most brutal terrorists we have ever captured.
Israel does not rule out the release of Samir Kuntar, the Lebanese terrorist whose freedom has long been sought by Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah, in the framework of a deal to bring home captured IDF soldiers Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, The Jerusalem Post has learned.
Kuntar, the longest-serving confirmed Lebanese prisoner in jail in Israel, is serving multiple life terms for the killing of three members of the Haran family and that of policeman Eliyahu Shahar in a raid on Nahariya in 1979.
Last month, relatives of Kuntar, who comes from a Druse family outside Beirut, urged the Goldwasser and Regev families to press Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to agree to an exchange, and some relatives of the Israeli pair have called on the government to do “whatever it takes” to bring home the two soldiers.
A senior Israeli source said on Sunday that Israel intended to ensure the implementation “to the letter” of UN Resolution 1701, which includes, in its opening, non-binding paragraphs, unlinked references to “the unconditional release of the abducted Israeli soldiers” and to “settling the issue of the Lebanese prisoners detained in Israel.”
Asked whether Israel might free Kuntar in an exchange deal, the senior source did not rule this out, but said Israel would have to ascertain exactly “what is being offered.” He declined to elaborate, but it is possible that this may have been a reference to the possible inclusion in a deal of information on missing Israeli airman Ron Arad.
Israel has previously shown a readiness to free Kuntar in the context of a deal involving news about Arad. Indeed, it was reported that Kuntar would be released in the second phase of a German-mediated prisoner deal with Hizbullah in 2004, in exchange for information on Arad. That phase of the deal was not implemented.
In 1979, Kuntar and his cohorts broke into the Nahariya apartment of Smadar and Danny Haran. They marched Danny and four-year-old Anat to the beach, where they smashed the child’s head against the rocks and then shot the horrified father. Smadar hid in a loft with the couple’s two-year-old daughter, Yael, clamping her child’s mouth to muffle her cries lest they be detected by Kuntar’s band, only to discover she had smothered Yael to death.
Later Monday, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert denied reports of imminent deals for the release of Shalit, Goldwasser and Regev at the opening of Monday’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee meeting.
“All information released regarding the return of the soldiers is incorrect. We are indeed continuing our efforts, but everything that has been said is simply groundless,” Olmert stated.
Shlomo Goldwasser said recently: “I think that anything is justified to release my son… Those who sent him there have to bring him back and pay any price.” He added: “I don’t want to go into this business of Samir Kuntar or others. They have to pay a price to bring my son back.”
Benny Regev, Eldad’s elder brother, said that getting back “two young men that can build their lives here” was “more important than Samir Kuntar, although he is a murderer.”
You can read more about Kuntar’s barbaric act in this previous post.
Meanwhile, The Australian mentions another way in which Ehud Goldwasser and Samir Kuntar are connected.
By an extraordinary twist of fate, it seems that Goldwasser, one of the Israeli captives, heard Qantar’s attack when, as a four-year-old boy, he was woken up by gunfire and grenades near the family home in Nahariya.
The next morning his parents told him that a girl his age had been murdered by an Arab terrorist who had come from Lebanon.
Amazing. Almost as amazing as the lengths to which the media will go to paint Kuntar in a good light.
In his Israeli jail cell Samir Qantar, who is serving four life sentences for murder and terrorism, dreams about an exchange of prisoners that might allow him to go home to Lebanon.
“I can imagine how I’ll return to my village,” he said. “First I hug my mum, then my brothers and sisters, all of them. My idea, which I’ll never give up, is to come out of here with my head held up, without giving up any of my principles.”
—-Samir Qantar, meanwhile, has expressed regrets about the death of four-year-old Einat. ‚ÄúThe girl was innocent,‚Äù he admitted. ‚ÄúShe was a little girl and there was no reason she should die. This girl is a very tragic story. It disturbed me then and will haunt me for the rest of my life.‚Äù
Excuse me while I throw up.
