Israeli communities on the northern border were on high alert Sunday following the killing of Lebanese Druze terrorist Samir Kuntar on Saturday. The defense establishment braced for Hezbollah's reaction, and sure enough, three rockets were fired at the northern city of Nahariya on Sunday afternoon. But everyone knows this sporadic fire was just an appetizer, and that the real retaliation has yet to come. Based on reports in Lebanese media, Kuntar's elimination was an impressive operation on all levels: the preliminary intelligence gathering, the real-time pinpointing of his location, and the surgical strike, which entailed minimal collateral damage. Two of the arch-terrorist's partners in his efforts to establish a Druze-based terrorist infrastructure in the Golan Heights (his spokesman and a guard) were also killed in the strike. For over a year, Kuntar has been laying the foundations for a terrorist network designed to target Israel, and in 2014 his operatives carried out nine attacks against Israel -- five involving roadside bombs and four of rocket fire. While most of the earlier infrastructure had been eliminated by Israel, the defense establishment was monitoring ongoing attempts to establish the so-called "national Syrian resistance in the Golan" closely. If the foreign media reports attributing Kuntar's demise to Israel are true, than it was most likely not an operation of revenge for his past crimes, so much as a pre-emptive strategy to thwart the terrorist attacks he had in the works. Kuntar may have been a "ticking time bomb," but he was also a symbol. He gained infamy in 1979, at the age of 16, after he murdered four Israelis in Nahariya. He was released from an Israeli prison in 2008 as part of a prisoner exchange deal with Hezbollah in which the remains of two Israeli soldiers, whose abduction in 2006 sparked the Second Lebanon War, were returned. Once back in Lebanon, Hezbollah tasked Kuntar with developing its infrastructure in Judea and Samaria, but those efforts proved futile, and Kuntar was given a new mission, more in line with Hezbollah's overall operations -- doing Iran's bidding. Whatever response the Shiite terrorist group will mount over the killing of Kuntar will, to a great extent, reflect Tehran's interests. Nevertheless, Iran finds itself in a situation where its interests are crossed, as it must also consider the implications retaliation might have on the nuclear deal with the West, and more importantly, on its primary regional interest -- preserving the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad. The fact that Hezbollah will most likely be left to its own devices on this matter should be very disconcerting for Israel. While Hezbollah did not hold Kuntar in the same regard as Jihad Mughniyeh (whose killing in January triggered Hezbollah to respond with the killing of two Israeli soldiers), the group has set a certain retaliatory bar for itself, one it cannot afford to fall under. Sunday's meek rocket fire cannot be considered part of Hezbollah's retaliation, especially since the more the defense establishment learns about the incident, the more it seems like the work of a local Palestinian militia that did not necessarily follow Hezbollah's orders. As Hezbollah may bide its time, the military must remain vigilant, recalibrate its potential target bank, and increase its efforts to thwart attacks, especially rocket fire. Past experience has shown that eventually Hezbollah will find a target, in which case Israel will be left to decide its next move. In January, it was decided to contain the situation and avoid an escalation on the northern border. This decision was based on the assumption that Hezbollah would also prefer to avoid a flare-up in the area. This dilemma may present itself again, perhaps sooner than Israel wanted.
