3rd January, 2024
Senior Hamas official Saleh al-Arouri was among at least six people killed in a strike by an Israeli drone on Beirut’s southern suburb of Dahiyeh on Tuesday, the Palestinian group and Lebanese media outlets say.
Al-Arouri, a senior official in Hamas’s politburo were killed alongside Samir Findi Abu Amer and Azzam Al-Aqraa Abu Ammar, leaders of Hamas’ armed wing – the Qassam Brigades, Hamas said in a message on its Telegram channel.
It named four other members of the group who were also killed.
Al-Arouri was killed in the group’s office in Southern Beirut, Lebanon’s state media is reporting.
Al-Arouri, 57, had served several terms in Israeli jails and was released in March 2010 as part of efforts to reach a larger prisoner swap for Gilad Shalit, an Israel Defense Force (IDF) corporal kidnapped by Hamas in 2006.
He was also involved in negotiating the deal that led to the release of more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails in return for the freeing of Shalit in 2011.
He was also one of the Hamas officials most closely connected to Iran and the Hezbollah group in Lebanon.
Hamas said al-Arouri’s killing would not “undermine the continued brave resistance” in Gaza, where the Palestinian group’s fighters are battling Israeli ground forces.
“It proves once more the utter failure of the enemy to achieve any of its aggressive goals in the Gaza Strip,” senior Hamas official Izzat al-Rishq said in a statement.
The group’s top leader Ismail Haniyeh condemned the attack as a “terrorist act”, a violation of Lebanon’s sovereignty, and an expansion of Israel’s circle of hostility against Palestinians.
Haniyeh said in televised remarks that Hamas “will never be defeated”.
There was no immediate comment from Israel.
Mark Regev, an adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, told the United States news channel MSNBC that Israel had not taken responsibility for the attack but “whoever did it, it must be clear that this was not an attack on the Lebanese state”.