Hamas deputy chief killed in Beirut strike

Deputy Hamas chief Saleh al-Arouri was killed Tuesday night in an Israeli drone strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs of Dahiyeh, a stronghold of the allied Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.
Leaders of Hamas’ armed wing Al Qassam Brigades, Samir Findi Abu Amer and Azzam al-Aqraa Abu Ammar, were also killed in the attack.

Lebanon’s national news agency said six people were killed when the drone struck a Hamas office. Surces said the strike had targeted a meeting.
Arouri was deputy head of Hamas’s politburo and a founder of its military wing, the Qassam Brigades.

The US had last year offered $5mn for information on Arouri.

Hamas politburo member Izzat al-Sharq called it a “cowardly assassination.”

Islamic Jihad vowed revenge in a statement.

Iran said the killing would further galvanise the fight against Israel, while Yemen’s Houthi movement expressed condolences.

In Ramallah in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, hundreds took to the streets to urge retaliation, shouting “Revenge, revenge, Qassam.”

A Reuters witness in Dahiyeh saw firefighters and paramedics gathered around a multi-storey building with a gaping hole in what appeared to be the third floor.

Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister Najib Mikati called the strike a “new Israeli crime” and said it was an attempt to pull Lebanon into war. Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah plans an address Wednesday to commemorate the fourth anniversary of the killing of Iranian Quds Force chief Qassem Suleimani in a US drone strike on Baghdad.

Hezbollah has been exchanging near-daily fire with Israel across Lebanon’s southern frontier since Oct. 7.
Israeli air strikes and shelling have killed more than 100 Hezbollah fighters and nearly two dozen civilians since then, including children, elderly and several journalists.

Source » gulf-times.com