Samir Kuntar also transcribed Sameer, Kantar, Quntar was born on July 20, 1962, and died on December 19, 2015.
Samir was a Lebanese Druze militant leader, member of the Palestine Liberation Front who was prosecuted by Israeli courts.
On April 22, 1979, at the age of 16, he participated in the killing of an Israeli policeman and the attempted kidnapping of an Israeli family in Nahariya that resulted in the deaths of four Israelis and two of his fellow kidnappers.
Samir and his team broke into an apartment building and kidnapped a father, 31-year-old Danny Haran, and his 4-year-old daughter, Einat, taking them to a nearby beach, where they were accused of killing them – something Kuntar always denied, saying the father and child were killed by crossfire.
In Israel, Samir is considered the perpetrator of one of the most brutal terrorist attacks in the country’s history.
Newsweek states that the details of Samir attack are “so sickening they give pause even to some of Israel’s enemies.”
The Jerusalem Post states that “exactly how popular Samir was in Lebanon is up for some debate.”
On November 24, 2008, Syrian president Bashar Assad presented Kuntar with the Syrian Order of Merit medal and in early 2009 he was honoured by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
On September 8, 2015, the United States Department of State designated him as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist under Executive Order 13224.
Samir Kuntar passed away at age 53 in December 2015.