Hizbullah buries militant Samir Qantar, vows to retaliate against Israel

Lebanon’s Hizbullah group yesterday said it would retaliate for the killing of prominent militant Samir Qantar in an Israeli air strike in Syria, after giving him an elaborate funeral in Beirut of the kind reserved for its top commanders.

Thousands of people chanted “death to Israel” as Hizbullah fighters in military uniforms carried Qantar’s coffin, which was wrapped by the group’s yellow flag, to a Shi’ite Muslim cemetery in its south Beirut stronghold where he was laid to rest.

“We have no doubt or question that Israel is the one which assassinated Samir Qantar; its planes fired precision missiles on a residential apartment [he was in],” Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said in a speech aired on the group’s al-Manar television channel.

“Samir is one of us, a commander of our resistance and it is our right to retaliate for his assassination in the place, time and way we see appropriate,” Nasrallah said. “We will exercise this right, God willing. Everyone should bear this in mind.”

A number of Syrians were also killed in the attack on Saturday, he said.

Repatriated to Lebanon

Qantar was jailed in Israel for his part in a 1979 raid in Israel that killed four people. He was a member of a Palestinian militant group then. Qantar was repatriated to Lebanon in 2008 in a prisoner swap with Hizbullah, which he then joined.

Israel welcomed his death, saying he had been preparing attacks on it from Syrian soil, but stopped short of confirming responsibility for the air strike that killed him.

“We, in a firm and definite way, hold the Zionist enemy responsible for assassinating him,” Nasrallah said. – (Reuters)