Top Hamas leader Saleh Arouri killed in Beirut explosion
Hamas’ No. 2 leader and a key “architect” of the deadly Oct. 7 terror attack on Israel was killed in an airstrike in the Lebanese capital of Beirut late Tuesday.
Saleh al-Arouri, the Palestinian terror group’s deputy chief, was taken out when the drone struck a Hamas office in Beirut’s southern suburbs of Dahiyeh — a stronghold of the allied Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, Hamas said on its official Telegram channel.
Al-Arouri — who was a founder of the group’s military wing, the Qassam Brigades — is now the most senior Hamas figure killed since the terrorists’ surprise attack triggered the devastating Israel war three months ago.
Five other people, including another Palestinian militant commander, were also killed in the Tuesday night strike, Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported, though details on their identities weren’t immediately available.
The strike targeted a Hamas meeting, multiple security sources told Reuters.
Izzat al-Sharq, a top Hamas political figure, immediately condemned the strike as a “cowardly assassination” by Israel.
But Mark Regev, an adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, told MSNBC in an interview that Israel has not taken responsibility for the deadly strike but “whoever did it, it must be clear: That this was not an attack on the Lebanese state.
“Whoever did this did a surgical strike against the Hamas leadership,” Regev added.
Al-Arouri, who was a key liaison with Hezbollah, was among the top figures on Israel’s hit list in the wake of the Oct. 7 attack that killed about 1,200 people, many Israeli civilians, and saw about 240 others taken hostage.
While Israel has long accused al-Arouri of lethal attacks on its citizens, a Hamas official claimed he was also “at the heart of negotiations” conducted by Qatar over the outcome of the war, as well as the recent release of Israeli hostages.
The dead Hamas higher-up had been described as an “architect” of the Oct. 7 massacre — and was given a 30-minute heads-up before his group’s terrorists stormed into southern Israel, so he could inform Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, according to reports.
Al-Arouri was a key link to Iran, too, and was pictured meeting with Iran’s Supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in Tehran in June last year.
His slaying, which comes ahead of a visit to the region by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, marks a potentially significant escalation of Israel’s war against the terror group and could provoke major retaliation by Hezbollah militia.
While Netanyahu has repeatedly threatened to kill Hamas leaders wherever they are in retaliation for the Oct. 7 assault, the latest drone attack would mark the first time Israel has targeted another country to reach the terror group’s upper leaders.
Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s leader, has previously vowed to strike back against any Israeli attack on Palestinian officials in Lebanon.
Hezbollah has already been exchanging near-daily fire with Israel across Lebanon’s southern border ever since Hamas carried out the Oct. 7 attack but has so far appeared reluctant to dramatically escalate the fighting.
Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister Najib Mikati called Tuesday’s airstrike a “new Israeli crime” and said it was an attempt to pull Lebanon into war.
Israel’s assault in Gaza has so far killed more than 21,900 people there, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry.
Israel has claimed that more than 8,000 of the slain Palestinians are terrorists, but neither side have offered up evidence to back up their death toll claims.
With Post wires
