Lebanese militant Samir Qantar killed in Israeli raid: Hezbollah group
Lebanese militant leader Samir Qantar was killed in an Israeli strike that hit a building in the Damascus district of Jaramana in the early hours on Sunday, the Lebanese Hezbollah group and Syrian government loyalists said.
The powerful Lebanese Hezbollah group said Qantar was martyred in an Israeli aerial raid on a residential district of the Syrian capital Damascus but gave no details.
An Israeli cabinet minister welcomed on Sunday the killing of Qantar but stopped short of confirming allegations that Israel was responsible.
Israel released Qantar, a Druze, in 2008 as part of a prisoner swap with the Lebanese Shi'ite Hezbollah group and he is believed to have joined the group since.
He was welcomed as a hero in Beirut and he married a Lebanese Shi'ite woman from a Hezbollah family.
Reuters doesn't even put the word "martyred" in scare-quotes. Obviously its reporter, Mariam Karouny, agrees with the characterization of Kuntar as a "martyr" and Reuters' copy-editors did not disagree (or notice.)
Nor does this Reuters article mention once why Kuntar was in Israeli prison to begin with. He's just a Hezbollah "militant."
CNN at least mentions his terror attacks, even if it also called him a "militant."
Belgium's De Reactie called him a "militant" but mentioned that he was part of a terror cell in 1979.
Germany's Die Welt and Belgium's De Morgen called him an "extremist."
Denmark's Avisen leads by describing Kuntar as "one of the most hated people in Israel."
Svenka Dagbladet (Sweden) mentions that he was convicted for murdering three people but does not elaborate.
AFP calls him a "senior Hezbolah figure" but mentions his terror attack in the first paragraph.
All of these are far better than the disgusting Reuters coverage.
Surprisingly, the best non-Israeli coverage of his death comes from The Inside Korea, whose headline is "Israeli rockets kill notorious terrorist Samir Quntar in Damascus."
(h/t Yenta)
UPDATE: Reuters now put "martyred" in quotes. It was done within an hour of this post.
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