TEL AVIV – An Israeli lawmaker hinted Saturday that Israel was behind the assassination of Hezbollah terrorist Samir Kuntar. He also warned that Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah would meet the same fate if he wasn’t careful.
During a town hall meeting in Beersheba, MK Omer Bar-Lev, who serves in the opposition Zionist Union party, came closer than any other government official to confirming Israel’s suspected role in Kuntar’s assassination.
“I would not recommend to Nasrallah that he leave his bunker,” the lawmaker said. “Why? Because he’s an enemy and he’s a target. He needs to be a target. So on a personal level, I would advise him to look after himself.”
Bar-Lev was responding to questions about the Lebanese Shi’ite group and its leader Nasrallah in the wake of threats to attack chemical facilities in Haifa.
At first, Bar-Lev, who is a former commander of the elite special forces unit Sayeret Matkal, did not directly answer the moderator’s question if Nasrallah would be targeted “at the earliest possible opportunity, just like Samir Kuntar.”
“I certainly do not want to make operational statements of that kind,” he said.
But a few minutes later Bar-Lev was asked if the Kuntar killing could be considered “a tremendous success for Israel.”
“Yes, certainly,” he replied.
However, after the meeting Bar-Lev released a statement denying that he had confirmed Israel was behind the Kuntar killing.
“Any terrorist dying is welcome, and it does not matter if we had a hand in it or not,” the statement read.
In December, Breitbart Jerusalem reported that the child-murderer and arch-terrorist Kuntar was killed in an apparent Israeli airstrike in Syria. Shortly thereafter, officials from both Hezbollah and the Palestinian Fatah movement vowed to avenge his death.