Samir Kuntar is a Lebanese Druze terrorist and former member of the Palestine Liberation Organization who was freed in a prisoner exchange between Israel and Hezbollah in 2008.

In 1979, at the age of 16, Samir Kuntar participated in a terror attack by a cell dispatched from Lebanon and landed on the beach of the Israeli coastal town of Nahariya. In what has been described as one of the most brutal terrorist attacks in Israel's history, Samir Kuntar, along with three accomplices, killed five Israelis, including three members of one family. Kuntar entered the home of the Haran family and kidnapped Danny Haran and his daughter, while Haran’s wife and a second daughter, aged two, hid in a crawlspace.

While attempting to avoid detection the baby's mother accidentally smothered her child. Samir Kuntar took the hostages back to the beach where they were confronted by Israeli police and soldiers. In the ensuing gunfight, a soldier and a terrorist were killed. Samir Kuntar also shot and killed Danny Haran at close range and then savagely killed Haran’s elder daughter. Samir Kuntar and his accomplice Ahmed al-Abras were apprehended by Israeli forces and jailed. Kuntar was convicted of murder, attempted murder and kidnapping by the Israeli court and sentenced to five life sentences plus 47 years imprisonment for his actions.

Samir Kuntar married an Israel-Arab woman while in prison, pursued a degree in social and political science from the Open University of Israel as well as mastering the Hebrew language.

In the 2008 prisoner swap deal between Israel and Hezbollah, Samir Kuntar was released in return for the bodies of two abducted Israeli soldiers. Kuntar and four other Lebanese prisoners were released from Israel and the bodies were returned.
Samir Kuntar’s release was much celebrated in Lebanon as a victory for Hezbollah, and Kuntar was greeted by high level officials from the Lebanese government as well as by Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah. Since his release Samir Kuntar has been designated a “hero” and received medals of Honor from Syria’s President Bashir Assad. Today, Samir Kuntar is free and lives in Lebanon.