The senior Hamas official Saleh al-Arouri has been killed in a reported Israeli drone strike near the militant group’s office in Dahiyeh, a south-western suburb of Beirut.
The television channel for Lebanon’s Hezbollah group said Arouri had been assassinated on Tuesday evening in an explosion along with several other Palestinians. Hamas later confirmed Arouri’s death.
Arouri, one of the founders of Hamas’s military wing, had headed the group’s presence in the West Bank.
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The Lebanese state news agency blamed the explosion on an Israeli drone strike. Footage showed a burning car in front of a high-rise building, suggesting that the vehicle was the focus of the attack.
The area has long been a stronghold for Hezbollah, the powerful Lebanese militant group backed by Iran, with whom Israel has been trading near-daily volleys of missiles, airstrikes and shelling since the 7 October Hamas attack on Israel.
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, had threatened to kill Arouri even before the Hamas attack.
Israeli officials declined to comment.
If confirmed as an Israeli assassination, the killing of Arouri would mark a significant escalation of Israel’s war against Hamas and its conflict with Hezbollah.
A senior member of Hamas, and a key architect of its armed wing, Arouri, a Palestinian, had lived in Lebanon in recent years.
Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad have offices in the sprawling suburb of the Lebanese capital, which was bombed heavily by Israel during the second Lebanon war in 2006.
The exchanges of fire between Israel and Hezbollah have been concentrated a few miles from the border, but on several occasions Israel’s air force has hit Hezbollah targets deeper in Lebanon.
More details soon …
2024-01-02 12:22:42
Post from www.theguardian.com
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