Israeli missile strike kills Lebanese Hizbullah militants in Damascus

Hizbullah says an Israeli air strike on a residential building in a suburb of the Syrian capital, Damascus, killed Lebanese Druze militant Samir Kuntar late on Saturday.

Mr Kuntar worked for Hizbullah in recent years, operating militant cells on the Syrian Golan Heights, close to the Israeli border, and both Syria and Hizbullah blamed Israel for the attack.

In what appeared to be an initial response to the killing, three rockets fired from south Lebanon landed in northern Israel last night. No one was hurt.

After those rockets landed, Israel’s military said it fired artillery rounds into southern Lebanon. It said in a statement it held the Lebanese government responsible for attacks emanating from its territory and that it would “continue to act against any attempt to harm Israel’s sovereignty and the security of its citizens”.

Mr Kuntar was killed, along with at least eight other militants, when a number of missiles hit the six-storey building in the Damascus suburb of Jaramana, reportedly during a meeting of militant operatives. The missiles were fired from inside Israeli territory in the vicinity of the Sea of Galilee.

Syrian media said that among the dead was Farhan Shaalan, a commander in the Syrian anti-Israel resistance group founded by Mr Kuntar. Senior Hizbullah members were also reportedly present in the building at the time.

Israeli officials refused to confirm that Israel carried out the strike.

"Usually we don't refer to such rumours or reports, but certainly Samir Kuntar is known to be a very brutal terrorist. He has killed a civilian family including a baby many years ago. And he is still involved in terrorism. So if something happens to him I think that no civilised person can be sorry. But, again, I learned it from reports in the international media and I can make no concrete reference to it," energy minister Yuval Steinitz told reporters.

Attack on family

Mr Kuntar was jailed in Israel for his part in an attack in 1979 that killed four people in the northern Israeli coastal resort of Nahariya, during which he reportedly used his rifle butt to kill a four-year-old Israeli girl.

The girl’s two-year-old sister also died, suffocated when her mother tried to keep her quiet while they hid from the gunmen, who had come from Lebanon.

Mr Kuntar, then a member of the Palestine Liberation Front, was jailed for life but released as part of a prisoner swap with Hizbullah in 2008.

He joined the group shortly afterwards, vowing to continue resistance against Israel.

His brother, Bassam, mourned him on his Facebook page without giving details about his death, but said his brother was a martyr.