20 December 2015•Update: 21 December 2015
JERUSALEM
Three rockets struck a northern Israeli town near the border with Lebanon, the Israeli military said Sunday.
According to Lebanese newspaper The Daily Star, the rockets were fired from southern Lebanon in retaliation for the killing in Syria late Saturday of a senior Hezbollah commander by an airstrike for which the group has blamed Israel.
The Daily Star also reported that Israel jets were later seen flying over Lebanese border towns.
The slain commander, Samir Kuntar, had been imprisoned in Israel for nearly 30 years for leading a deadly resistance operation from southern Lebanon into northern Israel in 1979.
He was finally released in 2008 through a prisoner-swap deal between Israel and Hezbollah conducted under German auspices.
His death in Syria late Saturday in the Al-Homsi district outside Damascus has received widespread media coverage in Israel, with several newspapers publishing articles posing the question as to when and how Hezbollah would retaliate.
The airstrike reportedly targeted an apartment building in which Kuntar had been staying along with a number of other Hezbollah fighters.
In a Sunday statement, Hezbollah declared that Kuntar had been "martyred" in a "Zionist airstrike".
Although the Israeli authorities have not claimed responsibility for the strike, a number of Israeli leaders have praised the operation.
Isaac Herzog, head of Israel’s opposition Labor Party, described Kuntar’s assassination as a "historical justice", which, he said, would serve to enhance regional security.
Israel had accused Kuntar of organizing armed groups in Syria near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
Israel’s official Channel Two television station on Sunday asserted that Kuntar had been leading Hezbollah military operations against Israel from inside Syrian territory.
In comments carried by Israeli newspaper Maariv, Avigdor Lieberman, a former foreign minister and leader of the right-wing Yisrael Beiteinu Party, said Kuntar had represented a longstanding threat to Israeli security.
Lieberman went on to say he had "no information" as to who carried out the airstrike that led to Kuntar’s death.
On Sunday, Kuntar’s brother, Bassam, declared via Facebook that it was "an honor to join the long list of martyrs’ families".
He did not, however, provide any additional information regarding his brother’s death.
