Three Senior Hamas Officials Killed In Beirut

An apparent Israeli drone strike conducted on Tuesday inside Lebanon reportedly killed three senior officials with the Hamas terror organization. The attack in the Hezbollah-controlled southern Beirut suburb of Dahiyeh could become a significant escalation in the ongoing conflict between Hamas and Israel, marking the expansion of the battle beyond Gaza and the borders of Israel.

The killed terrorists include Saleh al-Arouri, the deputy political leader of Hamas, and two brigade commanders, Samir Findi Abu Amer and Azzam Al-Aqraa Abu Ammar. The strike targeted a high-level meeting between Hamas officials and Lebanon’s Sunni Islamist Jama’a Islamiya faction.

Al-Arouri has been a top target of Israeli intelligence officials for years. His leadership role in Hamas and involvement in attacks and plots, some of which targeted and resulted in the death of an American citizen, were well-documented and known to U.S. investigators and prosecutors. The U.S. previously designated him as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist, with a $5 million bounty offered for his capture.

Al-Arouri’s background includes his active participation in Hamas during the first Palestinian intifada in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Over the years, he was arrested multiple times by Israeli authorities and served lengthy prison sentences. These arrests were often linked to his leadership role within Hamas and involvement in financing and facilitating terrorist activities, including weapon purchases.

Following his release from prison, Al-Arouri continued to engage in activities linked to Hamas, which led to his indictment by a U.S. federal grand jury in a racketeering conspiracy to provide funding to Hamas. Despite a brief period following his 2007 release from prison where he renounced terrorism and advocated for a political solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, his subsequent activities demonstrated his clear alliance with Hamas’s militant operations.

Iran and the Houthi rebels based in Yemen have condemned the assault. Ismail Haniyeh, a top Hamas leader, described the attack as a “terrorist act.” Meanwhile, Hezbollah has promised to retaliate against Israel, declaring that it has “its finger on the trigger.”

Arouri’s death will be significant in the larger context of the ongoing war, given his prominent leadership role within Hamas and his notorious history of terrorism across the Middle East. He was reportedly instrumental in the effort to strengthen the alliance between Hamas and Hezbollah as part of Iran’s so-called “Axis of Resistance.”

This strike has also heightened tensions within Lebanon. Prime Minister Najib Mikati has denounced the incident as a “new Israeli crime” and has moved to file a complaint with the United Nations Security Council. Hezbollah’s control over the security of the Dahiyeh region, coupled with previous warnings by Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah against Israeli assassinations on Lebanese soil, demonstrates the gravity of the situation.