Kuntar, who had been a member of the Palestine Liberation Front, led a group of four men who entered Israel from Lebanon by boat in 1979. They killed a police officer who came across them. Then they took a 28-year-old man and his four-year-old daughter hostage. Kuntar shot the father dead at close range in front of his daughter and tossed his body in the sea. He also smashed the girl’s head, killing her, too. A 2-year-old daughter suffocated as her mother tried to stop her from crying as they hid from Kuntar. He was sentenced to life and spent the last three decades in an Israeli jail — until Wednesday, when he is expected to return home to a hero’s welcome.
