Hamas deputy leader Saleh al-Arouri was killed in Israeli drone strike in Beirut on Tuesday, The Times of Israel reported.
Hamas has also confirmed that Israel killed its deputy commander, Saleh al-Arouri, in Lebanon on Tuesday.
“The cowardly assassinations carried out by the Zionist occupation against the leaders and symbols of our Palestinian people inside and outside Palestine will not succeed in breaking the will and steadfastness of our people or in undermining the continuation of their valiant resistance,” senior Hamas official Izzat al-Rishq said in a statement, according to The Times of Israel.
However, Israel is yet to comment on the strike that has killed the senior Hamas leader.
Meanwhile, Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister, Najib Mikati, condemned the killing of Saleh al-Arouri.
He issued a statement responding to the killing, terming it a “new Israeli crime” and forewarned, saying Tel Aviv is aiming to drag Lebanon into the conflict.
Al-Arouri, 57, a resident of Lebanon, served as the political bureau’s deputy director for Hamas and was regarded as the de facto head of Hamas’s military branch in the West Bank.
He was freed from Israeli prisons in March 2010 after serving many periods there as part of negotiations to secure a bigger prisoner swap for Gilad Shalit, an IDF personnel who was abducted by Hamas in 2006. Later, Arouri was instrumental in negotiating Shalit’s 2011 release in exchange for the release of over 1,000 Palestinian detainees from Israeli prisons, The Times of Israel reported.
Since October 7, Israel has killed more than 21,000 Palestinians as it continues bombardment on Gaza.
