1979 Nahariya Attack

The attackers crossed by sea from southern Lebanon. Most accounts describe a four-person Palestinian cell associated with the Palestine Liberation Front and identify Samir Kuntar as the operation’s leader.[4][2] The sources nevertheless differ on the organization’s identity: Maariv and Sefaria identify the PLF, the Institute for National Security Studies calls it the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and Globes identifies the cell with Fatah.[3][1][2][5]

The attack occurred across the night of April 21–22, 1979. A Ynet retrospective dates the incursion to the night of April 21, while Maariv and Sefaria give April 22.[1][2][6] The difference may reflect whether an account dates the crossing or the events after midnight, but the cited sources do not explicitly reconcile it.

Accounts also differ on the cell’s size and Kuntar’s age. Most accessible accounts describe Kuntar and three associates, while a Jerusalem Post report describes Kuntar traveling with four others.[7][2] INSS says Kuntar was 15 and Sefaria says he was 16.[3][1] Globes gives his age as 16½, while a Times of Israel account says 17.[8][5]

The attackers arrived by rubber boat. The Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center describes their arrival “around midnight” in an “inflatable rubber dinghy,” while the Jerusalem Post account describes a roughly ten-kilometer journey in a 55-horsepower rubber boat.[9][7] Maariv says the cell initially tried to enter a private home but was driven away by its owner, Amnon Sela.[2]

Residents alerted police to the suspicious figures. Eliyahu Shahar, a 25-year-old shift commander, was the first officer to arrive and was shot in the neck as he left his vehicle.[10] The attackers then entered the Haran family’s apartment at 61 Jabotinsky Street and seized 31-year-old Danny Haran and his four-year-old daughter Einat.[2]

Smadar Haran hid with two-year-old Yael and a neighbor in a loft or crawl space above the bedroom. As the attackers searched nearby, Smadar covered Yael’s mouth to prevent her cries from revealing their hiding place. Yael, who had asthma, lost consciousness and suffocated.[2][6]

The attackers took Danny and Einat toward the beach, where police and soldiers confronted them. Accounts state that Kuntar shot Danny and killed Einat by striking her head against a rock with his rifle butt.[11][2] A pathologist’s report was said to have found traces of Einat’s brain tissue on the rifle butt.[12]

Two members of the attacking cell were killed in the exchange of fire, while Kuntar and Ahmad al-Abras were captured.[2] A later Ynet report states that another police officer was also killed during the gunfire.[13] That account is consistent with a five-person Israeli death toll but differs from sources that enumerate four victims: Shahar and the three members of the Haran family.[1][4]

The four consistently named Israeli victims are police officer Eliyahu Shahar, Danny Haran, four-year-old Einat Haran, and two-year-old Yael Haran. Yael’s death was the unintended result of her mother’s attempt to keep the child quiet while they hid from the terrorists.[1][2]

The total death toll differs across the sources. The U.S. Department of State says five Israelis died, including two young children, and a Ynet account mentions an additional police officer killed during the final gunfire.[14][13] INSS says four Israelis were murdered, while Palestinian Media Watch’s account names Shahar and the three Harans.[3][4]

Kuntar was convicted of murdering Shahar, Danny, and Einat and of indirectly causing Yael’s death. Sefaria says he initially admitted to the killings but later denied killing Danny and Einat, claiming that Israeli security forces had killed them in the gun battle.[1]

The reported sentence also varies. INSS describes Kuntar as serving five life sentences, while Maariv specifies five life sentences plus 47 years.[3][2] Sefaria reports that he was sentenced in 1980 to four life sentences.[1] Maariv says al-Abras was released in the 1986 Jibril prisoner exchange, while Kuntar remained imprisoned until 2008.[2]

Kuntar was released on July 16, 2008, in an exchange between Israel and Hezbollah connected to Israeli soldiers Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser, who had been captured in 2006. Israel received their bodies and returned Kuntar, other Lebanese prisoners, and 199 bodies or remains to Lebanon.[3][1] The exchange publicly confirmed that Regev and Goldwasser were dead.[3]

The negotiations lasted from August 2006 until July 2008 and were conducted for Israel by Ofer Dekel through German mediator Gerhard Conrad. Hezbollah demanded Kuntar’s release, while Israel argued that he had committed the Nahariya attack as a member of a Palestinian cell rather than Hezbollah.[3]

The agreement generated strong public debate in Israel. Many Israelis regarded Kuntar as a symbol of Palestinian terrorism, and critics feared that exchanging living prisoners for dead hostages could encourage future abductors to kill their captives. Supporters stressed the need to end the uncertainty endured by the soldiers’ families.[3]

Accounts differ slightly in counting the prisoners released with Kuntar. A Ynet report describes Kuntar and four Hezbollah members returning to Lebanon, while the Jewish Virtual Library describes Kuntar and five other Lebanese terrorists.[15][16]

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert acknowledged that there was “no chance” the soldiers were alive, while saying that even people with “the utmost responsibility” had “the right and duty to have doubts” about a decision with consequences for the coming years.[17] President Shimon Peres signed Kuntar’s pardon after the government approved the exchange, stressing that the pardon did not mean forgiveness and noting that he had spoken with the victims’ families.[16] Smadar Haran said she had told the prime minister that Kuntar was not her personal prisoner and that the decision should be based on Israel’s interests.[11]

After returning to Lebanon, Kuntar was welcomed by Hezbollah and became one of its most visible and popular spokesmen. The U.S. Department of State later said that, with assistance from Iran and Syria, he played an operational role in building Hezbollah’s terrorist infrastructure in the Golan Heights.[14]

The attack continued to affect the victims’ families. Shahar’s brother Haim said their mother visited the cemetery daily and died eight months after the attack, while their father became an alcoholic and died four years later. Haim also recalled encountering Kuntar while delivering food to Beersheba Prison and said Kuntar would recognize him, stare, and smile.[10]

Smadar Haran rebuilt her life and continued living in Nahariya near the attack site. She described choosing not to seek revenge and said that Jewish and Arab lives in the city remained intertwined.[11]

The principal unresolved factual discrepancy is the Israeli death toll. Sefaria and several Israeli accounts identify four victims, while the U.S. Department of State reports five Israeli deaths.[1][14] A Ynet account’s reference to another police officer killed in the beach gunfire may explain the higher figure, but it does not name that officer.[13]

The attackers’ organizational affiliation is also inconsistent. Maariv and Sefaria identify the Palestine Liberation Front, INSS uses the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and Globes describes the cell as belonging to Fatah.[3][2][5] The Jerusalem Post calls the raid the “Nasser Operation.”[7] Palestinian Media Watch quotes the Palestinian Authority daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida calling it a “self-sacrificing operation in Nahariya on April 22, 1979” and identifying Kuntar as its leader.[4]

The raid has also been discussed as a turning point in Israel’s response to sea-borne terrorism. In a 2019 retrospective, former Israeli Navy commander Ze’ev Almog described it as the last deadly attack from the sea up to that time. He argued that a subsequent shift toward small, specially trained units helped end lethal terrorist incursions in Israel’s coastal and maritime arena; this was his retrospective assessment of the change and its causes.[18]