Hamas says Israel strike in Lebanon kills its deputy leader

Israel’s war against Palestinian group Hamas reached Lebanon on Tuesday, where an Israeli strike killed the group’s deputy leader, the group and security officials in Lebanon said.

A high-level security official told AFP that Saleh al-Aruri was killed along with his bodyguards in the strike by Israel, which vowed to destroy Hamas after the movement’s unprecedented October 7 attacks on Israel.

Israel has previously announced the killing in Gaza of Hamas commanders and officials during the war, but Aruri is the most high-profile figure to be killed, and his death came in the first strike on the Lebanese capital since hostilities began.

Israeli army spokesman Daniel Hagari did not directly comment on Aruri’s killing but said the military was ‘highly prepared for any scenario’ in its aftermath.

A second security official in Lebanon confirmed the information about Aruri’s killing.

Lebanese state media reported the strike hit a Hamas office in Beirut’s southern suburbs, a stronghold of Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah movement, a Hamas ally.

Hamas TV also said Israel had killed Aruri in Lebanon, and Lebanese media reported a total of seven people were killed in the attack by an Israeli drone.

 

Early life:

Born near Ramallah in the West Bank in 1966, Aruri was an early recruit to Hamas, joining the movement when it was formed in 1987 as Palestinians began their first Intifada uprising against Israeli occupation.

He was jailed in 1992, a year before Fatah's leadership agreed to the Oslo Accords with Israel, accepting its existence and abandoning armed struggle in favour of a push to negotiate the creation of a Palestinian state.

Hamas rejected that approach, and when Aruri was released in 2007, he soon returned to the struggle. He was jailed again until 2010, when the Israeli high court ordered his expulsion.

He spent three years in Syria before moving to Turkey until Israel pressed Ankara to make him leave in 2015. He has since been residing in Qatar and Lebanon, working from Hamas' office in Beirut's Dahiyeh district until Tuesday's sudden strike.