Although Tueni continued his editorials in An Nahar, he was out of Beirut until shortly before his death. After the assassination of Rafic Hariri, he learned that he was on the top of a hit list and started taking preventative steps, like switching cars every other day.[1] In June 2005, his star columnist Samir Kassir was assassinated. Then, he left Lebanon and stayed in Paris for a while and came back just before 12 December 2005, the day of the assassination.[6][2][15]