Thousands attend funeral of Lebanese fighter killed in Syria

A bulldozer clears debris from the site of a raid that killed a senior figure in the Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah, in Jaramana, southeast of the Syrian capital Damascus. But Syrian state media said he was involved in a major offensive earlier this year in Quneitra, near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Images from the scene show a collapsed multi-story residential building, with lots of rubble on the ground.

According to the Jerusalem Post, some residents in Nahariya, in northern Israel, reported hearing explosions with the most recent rocket attack, but local officials stated that there was no need to open bomb shelters. Lebanon-based Al-Mayadeen TV said Kantar had been living in the building for a year. More than a quarter of a million people have been killed and millions displaced.

Israel possesses long-range air to surface missiles that conceivably could have been fired from Israeli-controlled airspace.

On Sunday, three missiles launched from southern Lebanon hit northern Israel, to which the Israeli military responded with artillery fire. Between six and eight people were reportedly killed in the attack, among them Kantar himself and several Hezbollah field commanders.

Hezbollah legislator Ali Ammar vowed that Kantar’s death will not go unpunished adding that military commanders will decide how to avenge the killing.

“He was an arch-terrorist who killed a young girl by fracturing her skull and had continued his terrorist activities after being freed”, she told military radio.

Israeli has neither confirmed nor denied that it was behind Kantar’s assassination. He was ultimately imprisoned by Israel, but released as part of an exchange brokered by Hezbollah.

The Lebanon-Israel border was quiet but tense on Sunday afternoon. He also killed a police officer during the attack and is alleged to have beaten the 4-year-old to death with a rifle butt.

On Sunday, Haran’s wife, Smadar Haran Kaiser, said she felt relief that Kantar was dead. I remember how brutal he was.

Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah insisted at the time that Kantar be included in any swap.

While steering away from taking responsibility, many Israeli leaders praised the news of Kantar’s death. “The region is safer without him”, he wrote. Questioned by reporters about the Hezbollah announcement as he was entering a cabinet meeting Sunday, Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz quipped “It’s possible that Finnish intelligence was at work here. He was a villain”. Hezbollah is reported to support the regime of Assad by sending troops to fight against insurgents, such as ISIS.

The Sunnis don’t like this, and that includes regional powers such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey, all of whom want Assad gone and the influence of Iran contained. The Lebanese militant group is believed to possess tens of thousands of rockets and missiles.

Israel has previously said it would engage in the Syria conflict for two reasons only: to stop the transfer of game-changing weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon and to disrupt preparations for attacks on Israel. The dean of liberated detainees from Israeli prisons, brother Mujahid Samir Kuntar was martyred along with several Syrian citizens in the strike. In the past, several bereaved Israeli families have publicly expressed their resentment toward prisoners exchange deals, claiming that they would only lead to more bloodshed. The U.S National Counterterrorism Center and the European Union classify Hezbollah as being a “terrorist organization”.

Lebanese militant Samir Kantar had been accused of “building up Hezbollah’s terrorist infra …”