Netanyahu adviser: al-Arouri death ‘surgical strike against Hamas leadership’
Israel says “whoever did it”, the death of Hamas senior official Saleh al-Arouri in Beirut on Tuesday was not an attempt to provoke Lebanon into a wider Middle Eastern conflict.
Mark Regev, an adviser to Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli ambassador to the UK, said in an interview with MSNBC TV:
(Israel) has not taken responsibility for this attack. But whoever did it, it must be clear – this was not an attack on the Lebanese state … whoever did this did a surgical strike against the Hamas leadership.
His comments were reported by Reuters, which also said Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, condemned the reported drone blast as a “new Israeli crime” and said it was an attempt to pull Lebanon into war.
The country will submit a formal complaint to the United Nations security council about Israel’s “blatant strike in Beirut’s southern suburb” and “new Israeli violations of Lebanese sovereignty”, the agency said.
State media in Iran, meanwhile, says al-Arouri’s death “will undoubtedly further motivate the resistance to fight against Israel”.
Key events
Joanna Walters
Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh has issued a strongly-worded statement via television calling the killing of Hamas leader Saleh al-Arouri in Lebanon an assassination.
Hamas blames Israel for the drone strike that killed Arouri in Beirut.
In the speech, Haniyeh said:
The assassination of the leader Al-Arouri and his brothers by the occupation is a fully-fledged terrorist act, a violation of Lebanon’s sovereignty, and an expansion of its aggression. The Nazi occupation bears responsibility for this aggression and will not succeed in breaking the will of resilience and the steadfast resistance of our people and its valiant resistance.”
Hamas said the leaders were mourned, Reuters has reported.
![Joanna Walters](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/uploads/2022/12/13/Joanna_Walters_Next_Gen.png?width=300&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=ce789e61f5c53125de905d4e32561cae)
Joanna Walters
It appears that the strike within Lebanon that killed Hamas senior official Saleh al-Arouri also killed two leaders from the armed wing of Hamas, Samir Findi Abu Amer and Azzam al-Aqraa Abu Ammar, Reuters reports, citing a Hamas TV channel.
The weapons strike by drone, so far attributed by Hamas to Israel, reportedly killed six people in total.
Reuters now reports that two of those in addition to Arouri were leaders of Hamas’ armed wing Al Qassam brigades, citing Hamas Al Aqsa TV channel via Telegram.
My colleague Peter Beaumont says in this previous explainer about Hamas, an entity which is “many things”, that the Qassam brigades have always supported the use of terrorism tactics against Israel.
Summary of the day so far…
It’s 9pm on Tuesday in Gaza City, Jerusalem and Beirut. Here are today’s main developments in the Israel-Hamas war:
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Senior Hamas official Saleh al-Arouri was killed in an explosion in the southern Beirut suburb of Dahiyeh, reportedly caused by a targeted Israeli drone strike. Israel has not accepted responsibility, but says “whoever did this… (it was) a surgical strike against the Hamas leadership”.
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Six people were killed in the explosion, reports say, including al-Arouri and two leaders of Hamas’s elite military al-Qassam Brigades. Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, said condemned a “new Israeli crime” and said the country was filing a complaint to the United Nations security council.
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Hamas said it won’t release any more hostages it took during the 7 October attacks on Israel, except under its own terms. The group’s political chief, Ismail Haniyeh, told Reuters he laid out the Hamas position to officials of Egypt and Qatar, countries trying to broker a ceasefire similar to the one in November that saw more than 100 hostages freed. Haniyeh is demanding “a complete cessation of the aggression” by Israel.
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Turkey arrested 34 people on suspicion of spying for Mossad on behalf of Israel. “The Israeli intelligence service is recruiting personnel to be used in acts against Palestinians residing in our country and their families.,” a government official said. Without providing evidence, the official said the suspects were also spreading fake news and disinformation, carrying out robberies and blackmail for Israeli intelligence.
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Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant said military operations in the south of the Gaza Strip around Khan Younis were focused on areas above what he said was a tunnel network where Hamas leaders were believed to be hiding. “We are reaching them all ways. There already is engagement and there are hostages there too sadly,” he told Israeli troops in footage shown on Israeli television, Reuters said.
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The Palestine Red Crescent Society reported “several fatalities and wounded” at its headquarters in Khan Younis as a result of Israeli missile. “The occupation renews its bombardment of the PRCS headquarters in Khan Younis for the second time, resulting in several fatalities and wounded among the 14,000 displaced individuals housed in the PRCS’s premises and the adjacent Al-Amal hospital,” the group said in a statement.
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At least 22,185 Palestinians have been killed and more than 57,000 wounded by Israel’s military action in Gaza, according to updated figures from the health ministry. It says that 207 Palestinians were killed and 338 were wounded in the past 24 hours. The Gaza health ministry is run by Hamas. The figures do not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
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Separately, the Israeli military has claimed to have killed about 8,000 fighters in the Gaza Strip during its campaign. Additionally, since 7 October, at least 321 Palestinians have been killed in the occupied West Bank by Israeli troops or settlers. It has not been possible for journalists to independently verify the casualty figures being issued during the conflict.
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Israel Defense Forces have killed four alleged Palestinian militants during a raid in the occupied West Bank town of Azzun, the IDF has said. In addition it said it had arrested seven others. More than 2,550 people have been arrested in the occupied territory since the Israel-Hamas war began.
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Israel will defend its actions in Gaza at the international court of justice in The Hague after South Africa launched a case against the state accusing it of genocide last week, Israeli media has reported. “Israel, a longstanding signatory to the Genocide Convention, will not boycott the proceedings. We will participate and refute the absurd accusation that amounts to blood libel,” national security adviser Tzachi Hanegbi told the news site Ynet.
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The first UK maritime shipment of aid for Gaza has arrived in Egypt, carrying almost 90 tonnes of thermal blankets and other essential items. The shipment was delivered from Cyprus by royal fleet auxiliary ship Lyme Bay, and the aid will be distributed within the Gaza Strip by UNRWA.
US defense official: Israel ‘responsible’ for Beirut explosion
The Washington Post is reporting that US defense officials have already concluded that Israel “was responsible” for the explosion in Beirut that killed senior Hamas official Saleh al-Arouri.
The newspaper is quoting “a senior US defense official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive operations”, stating said the Israel Defense Forces was responsible for a strike targeting Arouri and that the IDF was conducting “an assessment of whether he had been killed”.
Israel has so far not admitted or denied responsibility, government adviser Mark Regev telling MSNBC that “whoever did this… (it was) a surgical strike against the Hamas leadership”.
Six people were killed in the explosion, including al-Arouri and “two leaders of Hamas’s elite al-Qassam Brigades”, the Post said.
Netanyahu adviser: al-Arouri death ‘surgical strike against Hamas leadership’
Israel says “whoever did it”, the death of Hamas senior official Saleh al-Arouri in Beirut on Tuesday was not an attempt to provoke Lebanon into a wider Middle Eastern conflict.
Mark Regev, an adviser to Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli ambassador to the UK, said in an interview with MSNBC TV:
(Israel) has not taken responsibility for this attack. But whoever did it, it must be clear – this was not an attack on the Lebanese state … whoever did this did a surgical strike against the Hamas leadership.
His comments were reported by Reuters, which also said Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, condemned the reported drone blast as a “new Israeli crime” and said it was an attempt to pull Lebanon into war.
The country will submit a formal complaint to the United Nations security council about Israel’s “blatant strike in Beirut’s southern suburb” and “new Israeli violations of Lebanese sovereignty”, the agency said.
State media in Iran, meanwhile, says al-Arouri’s death “will undoubtedly further motivate the resistance to fight against Israel”.
If Israel is confirmed to be responsible for the death of Saleh al-Arouri in Beirut on Tuesday, it would indicate an escalation of the country’s “worldwide campaign of assassinations of Hamas leaders” signaled by prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu soon after the 7 October attacks.
As the Guardian’s Jason Burke and Sufian Taha reported at the time, officials in Israel repeatedly briefed journalists that its secret services would target senior leaders of the militant Islamist organization all over the world.
“In November, Netanyahu told a press conference that he had instructed Mossad, Israel’s overseas intelligence service, to ‘assassinate all the leaders of Hamas wherever they are’,” we reported.
“In early December a leaked recording revealed Ronen Bar, the head of Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security agency, telling Israeli parliamentarians that Hamas leaders would be killed ‘in Gaza, in the West Bank, in Lebanon, in Turkey, in Qatar, everywhere … It will take a few years, but we will be there in order to do it’.
![Benjamin Netanyahu signaled a strategy of targeting Hamas leaders worldwide.](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/06d4173fa6b5597ce2641f3828b3e0f244920c78/745_69_1365_1706/master/1365.jpg?width=120&dpr=1&s=none)
“There have been explicit comparisons drawn with the (in)famous campaign of assassinations after the 1972 attack by an armed Palestinian faction on the Israeli team at the Munich Olympics.”
There are, however, serious concerns that the strategy would backfire. As Jason Burke writes: “When I spoke to former targets of assassination by Israel, including one who was very seriously injured by a letter bomb, they said that they had not been deterred but made more determined. And others suggest that any harm done to extremist and terrorist organizations is temporary.
“Finally, analysts say the consequences of assassinations is often very unpredictable. The death of one leader might force a group to switch strategy, or even relinquish violence, but might equally lead to the rise of another who is more intransigent.”
Read the full report:
The Israeli spy chief Zvi Zamir, who headed the Mossad during the 1973 Arab-Israel war, died Monday night at the age of 98, the government said on Tuesday, reported by AFP.
Zamir, who led the agency between 1968 and 1974, pioneered the strategy of deploying secret operatives abroad to assassinate Israel’s enemies.
“His tenure as director of the Mossad was characterised by extensive action, while dealing with significant challenges,” a government statement said.
They included “the fight against Palestinian terrorism” as well as the “military threat to the state of Israel, which peaked with the outbreak of the Yom Kippur war”, it said, referring to the 1973 conflict.
Zamir also led the global hunt for the leaders of the Palestinian militant group Black September, who were blamed for the 1972 murder of Israeli Olympic athletes in Munich.
This was the scene in the southern Beirut suburb of Dahiyeh on Tuesday night, after a reported Israeli drone strike on a Hamas office that killed a senior official, Saleh al-Arouri.
Four people were killed in the explosion, officials said, which some reports said took place as Arouri was meeting with Hezbollah leaders.
![Emergency services pictured at the site of an explosion in the southern district of Dahiyeh, Beirut, on Tuesday.](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/bbd1984d6962f9607fd3c11e256ffd1755256c8e/0_0_5568_3712/master/5568.jpg?width=465&dpr=1&s=none)
Israel has so far not commented on a claim, reported by Lebanese state TV and confirmed to Reuters by three anonymous Lebanese security sources, that it was behind the attack.
Arouri, a founder of Hamas’s military wing in the West Bank, has reportedly been a target of Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, since before the group’s 7 October raids into Israel.
Who was Saleh al-Arouri?
The death of a senior Hamas figure, Saleh al-Arouri, in a reported drone strike in Beirut on Tuesday is a significant victory for the Israel Defense Forces as the military campaign against the group in Hamas continues.
Born in 1966 in the West Bank town of Aroura, he had been a member of Hamas’s politburo since 2010 and its deputy chair since October 2017, according to the Mapping Palestinian Politics website.
![Saleh al-Arouri.](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/c20acddb8a0777acacd1c49992a6bd0327914f02/658_705_3296_4121/master/3296.jpg?width=120&dpr=1&s=none)
He was also the founder of Hamas’s military wing in the West Bank and, according to the Associated Press, was a target of Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, even before the group launched its 7 October attacks on Israel.
According to the The MPP website, Arouri led Hamas’s delegation in successive reconciliation talks with Fatah, the rival pro-Palestinian military and political group, and helped negotiate the release of captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in 2011, in exchange for 1,027 Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
He joined Hamas in 1987 and led the Islamic student movement before helping to establish Hamas’s military wing in the West Bank. He has been repeatedly detained by Israel, MPP said, including for long periods between 1985 and 1992, and between 1992 and 2007.
The Times of Israel reported that Israeli intelligence officials believed he helped plan the June 2014 kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers – Gil-ad Shaar, Eyal Yifrach and Naftali Fraenkel – as well as many other attacks.
In 2010 he was deported by Israel to Syria, where he lived for three years before moving to Turkey. He was based in Lebanon at the time of his death.
Hamas confirms senior official killed in reported Israeli drone strike
An Israeli drone strike killed senior Hamas official Saleh al-Arouri in Beirut, reports on Tuesday said. His death, which was confirmed by a Hamas radio station, would be a significant blow to the group in Gaza.
According to Lebanese state television, an Israeli drone missile targeted a Hamas regional office in the southern Beirut suburb of Dahiyeh where Arouri was believed to be present.
At least four people were killed in the explosion, according to the Reuters news agency, which said the Hamas radio station Al-Aqsa had confirmed Arouri among the dead.
Arouri was one of the founders of Hamas’s military wing, and led the group’s presence in the West Bank, the Associated Press reported. The agency said Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, had threatened to kill him even before the Israel-Gaza war began on 7 October.
In response to questions from Reuters, the Israeli military said it did not respond to reports in foreign media.
More soon…
Sources: Four dead in Beirut drone attack
Here’s a little more on the explosion reported on Tuesday evening in southern Beirut: according to Reuters, citing Lebanese state media, the target of the attack was “an office of the Hamas movement” in the suburb of Dahiyeh.
Officials say four people were killed in the attack, including a “senior Palestinian official”, Reuters reports, quoting two unnamed security sources. The Associated Press, citing Hezbollah TV, named the person as “top Hamas official Saleh Arouri”.
According to the Mapping Palestinian Politics website, Saleh al-Arouri is a founding member of Hamas’s military wing in the West Bank, and has been a member of the group’s politburo since 2010, currently acting as its deputy chairman.
The explosion was caused by an Israeli drone, Lebanon state media said. Israel has not yet responded to the claim.
Senior Palestinian official killed in Beirut explosion: report
A “senior Palestinian official” has been killed in an explosion in the southern Beirut suburb of Dahiyeh, according to reports from Lebanon.
Unconfirmed early reports suggest a drone missile hit a vehicle. Video posted to social media shows thick black smoke rising from a fire apparently at a roadside in the city, which is about 175 miles north of Gaza City.
Two “security sources” in Lebanon confirmed the explosion, according to the Reuters news agency, and said an unnamed “senior Palestinian official” was dead.
Israel and Hezbollah fighters in southern Lebanon have been exchanging missile fire as the country’s conflict in Gaza continues.
Nobody has so far claimed responsibility for Tuesday’s attack, and the number of any other casualties is not yet known.