11:01, 3 January 2024
YEREVAN, JANUARY 3, ARMENPRESS. Deputy Hamas chief Saleh al-Arouri was killed on Tuesday night in an alleged Israeli drone strike on Beirut's southern suburbs of Dahiyeh, according to multiple media reports.
Lebanon's national news agency said the drone struck a Hamas office.
Reuters cited two security sources as saying the alleged Israeli strike had targeted a meeting between Hamas officials and Lebanon's Sunni Islamist Jama'a Islamiya faction and left a total of four Palestinians and three Lebanese dead.
In response to questions from Reuters, the Israeli military said it does not respond to reports in the foreign media.
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 an attack on the Lebanese state."
"Whoever did this, did a surgical strike against the Hamas leadership," Regev said in the interview.
Arouri was deputy head of Hamas's politburo and a founder of its military wing, the Qassam Brigades.
Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh on Tuesday said Arouri's killing is "terrorist act," a violation of Lebanon's sovereignty and an expansion of Israel's hostility against Palestinians.
Islamic Jihad vowed revenge in a statement, saying: "This crime will not go unpunished and the resistance will continue until the occupation is removed."
Hamas, in a statement eulogizing Arouri and confirming the identities of five other members who were killed with him, called it a “cowardly assassination operation, carried out by the Zionist enemy, in a barbaric aggression and a heinous crime.”
Hezbollah vowed that it would respond to the assassination.
“We affirm that this crime will never pass without response and punishment,” Hezbollah said in a statement.
Hezbollah called the alleged Israeli strike “a serious assault on Lebanon, its people, its security and its sovereignty… and a dangerous development in the course of the war between the enemy and the axis of resistance.”