Chicago – January 03, 2024
According to the Palestinian group and Lebanese media agencies, senior Hamas official Saleh al-Arouri was murdered in an Israeli drone hit in Beirut’s southern suburb of Dahiyeh.
Al-Arouri was killed in a “treacherous Zionist strike” on Tuesday, according to Hamas’ official channel. Izzat al-Sharq, a Hamas politburo member, labeled it a “cowardly assassination.”
Al-Arouri was a senior leader in Hamas’s politburo who was well-versed in the organization’s military issues. He was formerly in charge of the organization’s presence in the occupied West Bank.
The blast, according to Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency, killed at least six individuals and was carried out by an Israeli drone.
According to Mark Regev, an adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel has not claimed credit for the incident, but “whoever did it, it must be clear that this was not an attack on the Lebanese state.”
Najib Mikati, Lebanon’s Prime Minister, denounced the assassination. According to his office, the attack “aims to draw Lebanon into a new phase of confrontations” with Israel at a time when Hamas ally Hezbollah is exchanging daily cross-border fire with Israeli forces in northern Israel.
