Israel shelled after militant Samir Kantar dies in Syria strike

Rockets were fired into Israel from southern Lebanon on Sunday evening, hours after a suspected Israeli air strike inside Syria killed a leading militant figure, ratcheting up tensions in the volatile border area where the three countries meet.

Hizbollah claimed Israeli air strikes early on Sunday morning on the outskirts of Damascus killed the high-profile Lebanese militant leader Samir Kantar, who is believed to be linked to the guerrilla force.

On Sunday afternoon, three rockets hit northern Israel, the country’s military said, but gave no information on who it thought had fired them. There were no immediate reports of injuries.

Later on Sunday, Lebanon’s state news agency said Israel was conducting repeated “mock raids” over two southern cities, Nabatieh and Iqlim Tufah. The National News Agency also reported seven artillery strikes from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights into areas south of the coastal city of Tyre.

The exchange of fire risks escalating tensions between Israel and Hizbollah, the Lebanese Shia movement , in a region already destabilised by Syria’s civil war. It is also the highest-profile strike inside Syria attributed to Israel since Russia entered the war on the side of President Bashar al-Assad in September.

Israel held consultations with Russia to avoid clashes in the area, but Israeli officials have also said that they reserve the right to act unilaterally if needed. Last month Turkey downed a Russian jet.

The suspected Israeli strike brought down a residential building in Syria’s Damascus suburb of Jaramana and also killed several members of the pro-Assad paramilitary National Defence Force, according to NDF’s statements on Facebook.

Israel did not confirm or deny the country’s involvement, in keeping with its policy of not commenting on attacks against its neighbours.

Hizbollah said in its statement on Sunday that strikes carried out by “planes of the Zionist enemy” hit the building at 10.15pm the previous day. “This led to the martyrdom of the General of Prisoners in Israeli prisons, the liberated prisoner and brother of the resistance, the holy warrior Samir Kantar and a number of other Syrian citizens.”

Kantar served 30 years in jail for his role in a beach raid on the Israeli town of Nahariya. He was sentenced to more than five life terms, convicted of killing two policemen, and two members of an Israeli family. Hizbollah secured his release in a 2008 prisoner swap.

A member of Lebanon’s Druze sect, he is believed to have joined Hizbollah’s armed wing upon his return. Many in Lebanon suspect he was working to recruit more Druze to fight with the group.

Yaakov Amidror, a former national security adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said on Sunday that Kantar had been preparing to launch attacks against the Israeli-occupied part of the Golan Heights, home to several Druze villages.

“Samir Kantar was a pivot in the efforts of Hizbollah to prepare the Golan Heights as another front against Israel,” Mr Amidror said in a conference call organised by the Israel Project, a pro-government advocacy group that works with foreign journalists.

Hizbollah, which waged a month-long war with Israel in 2006, is fighting on the side of Mr Assad. Israel has struck targets inside Syria several times in unacknowledged attacks since 2013 to prevent weapons transfers to the group.

Israel is also wary Hizbollah and its Iranian backers could use their growing presence in Syria to open a front against it in the Syrian Golan region, part of which Israel has occupied since the 1967 Six-Day War.

Hizbollah’s public accusation of Israel in Kantar’s death raises the risks of escalation. In January 2015, an Israeli strike on Syria’s southern Golan region killed an Iranian general travelling with six of the group’s fighters, including the son of a famous Hizbollah commander.

Hizbollah launched a border raid on the Israeli army in response, and the group’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, warned after settling the score on that attack: “We in Lebanon’s Islamic resistance are no longer interested in anything called the ‘rules of battle’.” Officials close to the group hinted retaliations could now involve settlements in the Israeli-held northern Golan.

But Mr Amidror said he expected Hizbollah to retaliate in a way that would not force Israel to begin a major military operation at a time the group is mired in a costly battle in Syria. “It is not in their interest.”