Samir Kuntar

The group members included Abdel Majeed Aslan (born 1955), Muhanna Salim al-Muayyad (born 1960) and Ahmad al-Abras (born 1949).

They all belonged to the PLF under the leadership of Abu Abbas.

The group departed from the Tyre seashore in Southern Lebanon using a 55-hp 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 first killed Eliyahu Shachar, a policeman who encountered them.

The group then entered a building on Jabotinsky Street where they split into pairs.

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.

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.

Kuntar's 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 Kuntar's 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 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, from where she saw Danny and Einat being led away at gunpoint by Kuntar.

Samir Kuntar (سمير القنطار, also transcribed Sameer, Kantar, Quntar, Qantar; 20 July 1962 – 19 December 2015) was a Lebanese Druze member of the Palestine Liberation Front and Hezbollah.

He was convicted of terrorism and murder by an Israeli court.

On 31 January 1978, Samir Kuntar and three additional militants from his organization attempted to hijack an Israeli bus running the line between Beit She'an 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 Israel by swimming.

However, before crossing, they were arrested by the Jordanian intelligence.

Kuntar was held for 11 months in a Jordanian prison and was released in December 1978.

He was banned from entering Jordan for three years.

On 22 April 1979, at the age of 16, Kuntar 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.

After his release, Kuntar became a senior official in Hezbollah.

According to Druze sources, Hezbollah put Kuntar in charge of the Quneitra Governorate during the Syrian Civil War, where he commanded attacks against Israeli targets.

According to the US government, Kuntar played an operational role, with the assistance of Iran and Syria, in "building up Hezbollah's terrorist infrastructure in the Golan Heights".

On 22 April 1979, aged 16, Samir Kuntar led a group of four PLF militants who entered Israel from Lebanon by boat.

After his release from prison as part of the 2008 Israel–Hezbollah prisoner exchange, he received Syria's highest medal, was honored by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and was designated a Specially Designated Global Terrorist by the US government.

In Israel, Kuntar is considered the perpetrator of one of the most brutal terrorist attacks in the country's history.

On 19 December 2015, Kuntar was killed by an explosion in the outskirts of Damascus.

According to official Syrian sources, Kuntar was killed by "terrorist rocket attack".

On 20 December 2015, Syrian Information Minister Omran al-Zoubi described the incident as a terrorist operation "plotted beforehand", commenting that Syrian authorities were carrying out an investigation to find out how the operation happened.

Hezbollah claimed that the building was destroyed by an air-to-surface missile launched by Israeli Air Force jets.

On 21 December, the Free Syrian Army released a video clip claiming responsibility for killing Kuntar.

Kuntar was born to a Druze family in Lebanon.

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.

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.