An explosion in Beirut on Tuesday killed Saleh Arouri, a top official with the Palestinian militant group Hamas and three others, officials with Hamas and the Lebanese group Hezbollah have confirmed.
Arouri, one of the founders of Hamas’s military wing, had headed the group’s presence in the West Bank. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had threatened to kill him even before the Hamas-Israel war began on October 7.
Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has vowed to retaliate against any Israeli targeting of Palestinian officials in Lebanon.
Hamas official Bassem Naim confirmed to The Associated Press that Arouri was killed in the blast. A Hezbollah official speaking on condition of anonymity in line with regulations also said Arouri was killed.
Israel’s Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, speaking to the media on Tuesday, made no direct mention of the death of the Hamas official.
“We are focused and remain focused on fighting against Hamas,” he said. But he added: “We are on high readiness for any scenario.”
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said the blast killed four people and was carried out by an Israeli drone.
The explosion shook Musharafieh, one of the Lebanese capital’s southern suburbs, which are a stronghold of the militant Hezbollah group, an ally of Hamas.
It caused a fire in Hadi Nasrallah Street south of Beirut.
Videos circulating on social media showed serious damage and fire.
The explosion came after more than two months of heavy exchanges of fire between Israeli troops and members of Hezbollah along Lebanon’s southern border.
Since the fighting began it has been concentrated a few miles from the border but on several occasions Israel’s air force hit Hezbollah targets deeper in Lebanon.
Earlier in the day, Hezbollah said its fighters carried out several attacks along the Lebanon-Israel border targeting Israeli military posts.
Arouri, the deputy political head of Hamas, had been in Israel’s sights for years before he was killed in the strike.
Israel had accused Arouri, 57, of masterminding attacks against it in the West Bank, where he was the group’s top commander. In 2015, the US Department of the Treasury designated Arouri as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist offering five million dollars (£4 million) for information about him.
Asked about assassination threats against him in an interview with Beirut-based Al-Mayadeen in August, Arouri said: “It is not strange for us for the commanders and cadres of the movement to be martyred.
“I never expected to reach this age, so I am living on borrowed time.”
In the same interview, he threatened that in case of a comprehensive war, “Israel will suffer a defeat unprecedented in history”.
Born in the town of Aroura in the occupied West Bank, Arouri joined Hamas and eventually went into exile, first to Damascus, where the Syrian government was a strong supporter of the group. But he left in 2011 when Hamas split with President Bashar Assad, siding with the opposition in Syria’s civil war.
He went on to Turkey, but had to leave there in 2018 in an exodus of Hamas officials after Ankara improved its relations with Israel and after Qatar — a backer of the Palestinian militant group — was hit by a boycott led by its rival Saudi Arabia and other nations in the region.
Arriving in Beirut, Arouri made few public appearances but helped to pull Hamas closer to Hezbollah’s orbit. Hamas was able to build up its political and military presence in Lebanon — but under careful control by Hezbollah.
Arouri also became a key figure in the group’s reconciliation with Assad, and he proudly proclaimed himself part of the “Axis of Resistance”, the collection of Iran’s regional allies, including Hezbollah and Syria,
In early September, Arouri held a meeting with Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah that was attended by Ziad Nakhaleh, the leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group, during which they discussed the situation in the Palestinian territories. A similar meeting was convened after the Israel-Hamas war broke out in October.
Since October 7, Arouri kept a low profile while others in the Hamas political leadership made frequent public appearances in Beirut, including in near-daily press conferences.
He seems to have been hiding in plain sight. He was killed in a strike on an apartment building in the middle of Beirut’s southern suburbs.
Hezbollah said in a statement that the targeting of Arouri “in the heart of the southern suburbs of Beirut” constituted “a serious attack on Lebanon, its people, its security, sovereignty and resistance”.
“We affirm that this crime will never pass without response and punishment,” it said.
Mr Nasrallah is set to speak on Wednesday, on the anniversary of the killing of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani in a US airstrike.
Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani said on Tuesday that the killing of Arouri “once again proved that straw foundation of Zionists is based on assassination and crime”, Iranian media reported.
He called it a sign of Israel’s “heavy defeat” before Palestinian militant groups in the war in Gaza.
