Beirut Explosion : Hamas deputy head Saleh Arouri killed

Beirut Explosion : Lebanon’s Hezbollah group said that top Hamas official Saleh Arouri was killed in an explosion in a southern Beirut suburb. Saleh Arouri was one of the founders of Hamas’ military wing. He also headed the group’s presence in the West Bank. Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu had threatened to kill him even before the Israel-Hamas war began on October 7, Associated Press reported.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said the blast killed four people and was carried out by an Israeli drone after an explosion shook the Lebanese capital’s southern Beirut.

What they said after attacked on Beirut?

Hamas vowed that the killing will not “undermine the continued brave resistance” in Gaza. Senior Hamas official Izzat al-Rishq said in a statement, “It proves once more the utter failure of the enemy to achieve any of its aggressive goals in the Gaza Strip.” The Hamas politburo member said that it was a “cowardly assassination.”

Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah vowed to retaliate against any Israeli targeting of Palestinian officials in Lebanon as per Associated Press while Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister Najib Mikati condemned the explosion as a “new Israeli crime” saying that it was an attempt to pull Lebanon into war.

Mark Regev, an adviser to Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, told MSNBC that Israel had not taken responsibility for this attack, but “whoever did it, it must be clear: That this was not attack an attack on the Lebanese state. Whoever did this did a surgical strike against the Hamas leadership.”