Saleh Al-Arouri, number two in Hamas' political bureau, was killed in an Israeli strike near Beirut on Tuesday, January 2, the Palestinian movement and two Lebanese security service officials said.
According to one of them, the attack that led to his death and that of his bodyguards targeted the Hamas office in the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital. According to the Lebanese Press Agency, the explosion caused by a drone claimed four lives. Saleh Al-Arouri was considered one of the founders of Hamas' military wing.
Hamas confirmed that he was “assassinated” in an Israeli attack in Beirut. “Martyrdom of Hamas Politburo Vice President Sheikh Saleh Al-Arouri in a Zionist attack in Beirut,” said an announcement from the movement broadcast by its official channel Al-Aqsa TV and other media channels.
“The Zionist occupier's cowardly assassinations against the leaders and symbols of our Palestinian people inside and outside Palestine will neither break the will and resilience of our people nor hinder the continuation of their brave resistance,” said Hamas Politburo member Ezzat Al-Rishq, in a statement.
Published in 2010
When contacted by Portal, the Israeli army said it would not respond to questions about information from the foreign press. According to a Portal journalist, the attack targeted a building in a densely populated district of Daniyeh near a highway. An Agence France-Presse photographer at the scene saw two floors of the building blown away and damaged cars in the area, with ambulances flocking to them.
The area is considered a stronghold of the pro-Iranian Hezbollah, which has supported Hamas since the war in Gaza began on October 7 and has fired rockets almost daily into northern Israel, leading to unprecedented border conflicts since 2006. So far, the shots have been in the border area limited and the Israeli army did not target the Lebanese capital.
Lebanese interim Prime Minister Najib Mikati denounced a “new Israeli crime” and said it was a new attempt by the Jewish state to pressure Lebanon into taking part in the war. The death of Hamas number two came on the eve of a speech by Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah's secretary general.
Accused by Israel of being the mastermind of numerous attacks, Saleh Al-Arouri was elected deputy to Ismaïl Haniyeh, head of Hamas' political bureau, in 2017, making him the movement's number two. After spending almost twenty years in Israeli prisons, he was released in 2010 on condition that he go into exile and has lived in Lebanon ever since.
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