A picture posted on Facebook by an Arab journalist comparing the condition of prisoners held in Syria with those jailed in Israel has sparked a wave of praise for the Jewish state from the Muslim world.

Al-Jazeera journalist Faisal al-Qassem posted a split-screen image of an emaciated Syrian in an Assad-regime prison next to a picture of plump terrorist Samir Kuntar leaving an Israeli jail in 2008.

Al-Qassem wrote: “Samir Kuntar left an Israeli prison with a beer belly and a doctorate. At the other extreme, this is how Syrians leave Assad’s prisons”.

The Facebook post was shared over 20,000 times and resulted in pro-Israel comments.

“We are taught that Israeli prisons are the worst in the world but in fact we know that the Israelis are more merciful than all of the Arabs,” wrote one Facebook user in Arabic.

“Some say that the Zionists are our biggest enemy, dogs and murderers. But Muslims kill more Muslims that the Zionists,” read another.

Last weekend, Hizbollah-affiliated terrorist Samir Kuntar was killed in an Israeli Air Force attack near Damascus, along with eight other fighters.

Kuntar, a Lebanese Druze, was infamous for a 1979 raid in which he helped kidnap an Israeli family from Nahariya. He then smashed the head of a four-year-old Israeli girl, Einat Haran, with his rifle butt, killing her. Three other Israelis, including her father, Danny Haran, were killed in the attack.

He spent 29 years in Israeli prison before being handed to Hizbollah in 2008 in exchange for the bodies of IDF soldiers Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser.

While there has been no official Israeli confirmation of the attack as yet, reports have emerged saying that Kuntar was assassinated not as revenge for his past actions, but because he was planning fresh attacks against Israel.