A leading Hamas member has been killed in a drone strike in Lebanon’s capital Beirut. The militant Palestinian organization confirmed this. Israel’s military declined to comment on the reports.
According to Lebanese security officials, the number two of the radical Islamist Palestinian organization Hamas was killed in a drone attack in a suburb of Beirut. Saleh al-Aruri was killed along with his bodyguards in the attack on the Hamas office south of Beirut, a senior security official told AFP. Shortly afterwards, Hamas spoke in its official media of the “assassination” of al-Arouri.
“The vice president of Hamas’ political bureau, Sheikh Saleh al-Aruri, was martyred in a Zionist attack in Beirut,” Hamas announced on its official television channel, al-Aqsa TV, and its other media outlets.
According to Lebanese state media, the attack hit Hamas’s office in a southern suburb of Beirut, considered a stronghold of the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia.
Saleh al-Aruri was killed in a drone strike in southern Beirut.
No confirmation from Israel
Israel’s military did not want to comment on the reports when asked. If it were an Israeli attack, it would be the first on a target in the Lebanese capital since the war between Israel and Hamas began on October 7 – and the first targeted killing of a senior Palestinian official by Israel.
So far, clashes between the Israeli army and the Lebanese Hezbollah militia – an ally of the Palestinian Hamas – have been limited to the border areas in southern Lebanon.
Danny Danon, a senior member of the Likud party, which also includes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, congratulated Israel’s military, intelligence services and security forces on Everyone involved in the October 7 massacre should know that Israel will reach them, he wrote. According to Israeli media reports, the Israeli cabinet secretary has banned ministers from commenting on the incident. Far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich wrote on X: “All your enemies will perish, Israel.”
Al-Aruri, whom Israel saw as the mastermind of attacks in the West Bank, had long been considered a possible target for an attack. He was considered responsible for the activities of Hamas’s military wing in the West Bank. Israel and Hamas exchanged threats in the summer – even before their ongoing war began. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Al-Aruri “knows very well why he and his friends are in hiding.”
Symbolic Date
The explosion occurred on the eve of the third anniversary of the killing of General Ghassem Soleimani of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The USA killed him in a drone strike in Iraq in 2020. Recently, senior Iranian general Sejed-Rasi Mousavi was killed in a suspected Israeli airstrike in Syria.
Nina Amin, ARD Berlin, currently Cairo, tagesschau, January 2nd, 2024 7:51 p.m