One of Hamas’s most senior officials, Saleh al-Arouri, has been killed in an Israeli drone strike in Beirut that threatens a significant and dangerous escalation of Israel’s war against Hamas and its related conflict with the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.
The Lebanese prime minister, Najib Mikati, echoing fears of further regional violence, described the assassination as a “new Israeli crime intended to spur a new phase of conflict, following daily attacks in the south [of Lebanon]”.
The audacious attack hit Hamas’s office in Musharafieh, a southern suburb of Beirut. The television channel for Lebanon’s Hezbollah group said Arouri had been assassinated on Tuesday evening in an explosion along with five others while attending a meeting. A Hamas official, Basem Naim, also said Arouri had been killed in the blast. The group said two other officials in its armed wing were also killed in the attack.
In a statement on Tuesday night, Hezbollah said the assassination was a “serious assault on Lebanon”, calling it a “dangerous development in the course of war between enemy and axis of resistance … [that] will not go without a response or punishment. The resistance has its finger on the trigger.”
An Israeli military spokesperson, R Adm Daniel Hagari, said Israeli forces were in a state of “high readiness” and prepared for any scenario after the killing of Arouri. Asked to confirm that Israel was behind the strike, Hagari told a media briefing, “we are focused on killing Hamas.”
Mark Regev, an adviser to the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said in an interview with MSNBC that Israel “has not taken responsibility for this attack.”
“But whoever did it, it must be clear - this was not an attack on the Lebanese state,” he said. “Whoever did this did a surgical strike against the Hamas leadership”.
Lebanon issued in a statement later on Tuesday saying it would submit a complaint to the UN security council over the “blatant strike” on its territory. The explosion came during more than two months of heavy exchanges of fire between Israeli troops and members of Hezbollah along Lebanon’s southern border since Hamas launched its surprise attack on southern Israel on 7 October. Israel’s air force has hit Hezbollah targets deeper in Lebanon on several occasions.
Arouri becomes the most senior Hamas official to have been killed since the 7 October attacks.
He was a key figure in the group and seen as close to Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’s leader in Gaza. Regarded as the principal interlocutor between Hamas and Hezbollah, not least with Hezbollah’s secretary general, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, he was also an important figure in the group’s financial network.
Arouri’s assassination is likely to complicate negotiations between Hamas and Israel over the hostages the militant group holds in Gaza, with Arouri described as playing a key role in negotiations for the captives’ release.
He had also been implicated in directing a number of attacks against Israel. In 2014 Israel accused him of being behind the kidnap and murder of three Israeli teenagers, which led to that year’s conflict in the coastal strip, and he was designated by the US for his role in terrorism in September 2015.
More recently he was blamed for a salvo of missiles fired from southern Lebanon against Israel last spring.
Other top Hamas leaders in Gaza, including Sinwar and Mohammed Deif, the head of Hamas’s military wing, both of whom Israel has vowed to kill, appear to have so far evaded Israeli efforts in the midst of a military offensive against the coastal strip that has claimed more than 22,000 lives.
The area where the attack took place is in one of Beirut’s sprawling southern suburbs that has long been a stronghold for the Lebanese Hezbollah and where Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad have offices.
Images from the scene of the attack showed a heavily damaged building and at least one burning car outside.
Amid fears of potential retaliation inside Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories and beyond, Israel’s police were put on high alert. Nasrallah had previously vowed to retaliate against any Israeli targeting of Palestinian officials in Lebanon.
Arouri’s killing came as it was reported that US and Israeli officials had recently discussed transitioning from high-intensity operations to a different phase to “maximise focus on high-value Hamas targets” and after warnings from Israel it would hunt down senior Hamas figures.
In the immediate aftermath of Arouri’s death, Danny Danon, a former senior Israeli diplomat and MP in Netanyahu’s Likud party, tweeted congratulations on the assassination.
“I congratulate the IDF, the Shin Bet, the Mossad and the security forces for killing senior Hamas official Salah al-Aaruri in Beirut,” wrote Danon. “Anyone who was involved in the 7/10 massacre should know that we will reach out to them and close an account with them.”
אני מברך את צה"ל, השב"כ, המוסד וכוחות הביטחון על חיסול בכיר החמאס סלאח אל-עארורי בביירות.
— Danny Danon 🇮🇱 דני דנון (@dannydanon) January 2, 2024
כל מי שהיה מעורב בטבח ה-7.10 צריך לדעת שנגיע אליו ונסגור איתו חשבון. pic.twitter.com/6KOZtuLQ87
Arouri, 57, one of the founders of Hamas’s military wing who served as deputy head of Hamas’s politburo under Ismail Haniyeh, had headed the group’s presence in the West Bank but had lived in Lebanon since 2018.
Born in a village outside the West Bank city of Ramallah, Arouri was jailed twice in Israel, spending more than a dozen years in prison before being released in 2010.
Israeli officials declined to comment.
