Saleh al-Arouri, Hamas’s number two in charge, was killed along with his bodyguards and four others in a strike by the Israeli army on Hamas’s office in Lebanon’s capital Beirut, international media reported on Tuesday.
Israel had targeted the office of the Palestinian movement in the suburbs of Beirut where the Palestinian group was taking place on Tuesday evening in the stronghold of the pro-Iranian Hezbollah, according to both the official Lebanese agency ANI and Hamas.
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh called Arouri’s assassination a “terrorist act,” a breach of Lebanon’s sovereignty, and an extension of Israel’s animosity toward Palestinians.
Israel’s IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari declared that the Israeli army is ready “for any scenario.”
Al-Arouri, who had been in exile in Lebanon for several years, was deputy head of Hamas’s politburo and a founder of its military wing, the Qassam Brigades.
He had just visited Qatar, which has been mediating negotiations between Hamas and Israel including regarding the hostages taken by Hamas in its Oct. 7 attack.
Najib Mikati, Lebanon’s interim prime minister, condemned the strike as a “new Israeli crime” and an effort to drag Lebanon into war. He has requested Lebanon’s foreign minister to submit a protest to the United Nations Security Council, according to his office.
Hundreds took to the streets in Ramallah in the Israeli-occupied West Bank to demand reprisals, chanting “Revenge, revenge, Qassam.”
Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel resulted in 1,200 Israeli people killed and 240 missing, according to Israel.
Israel’s response has been a nearly three-month-long siege on Gaza, including a blockade of water, food, fuel, and humanitarian aid. Nearly two million Palestinians (about 85% of the population) have been displaced from their homes, with no safe place left in the strip, according to UNWRA and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and are facing starvation and disease.
Palestinian health officials said that more than 22,000 Palestinians have been killed, the majority of whom are women and children.