{"id":99009,"date":"2024-01-02T14:26:38","date_gmt":"2024-01-02T20:26:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=99009"},"modified":"2024-01-02T14:28:55","modified_gmt":"2024-01-02T20:28:55","slug":"99009","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=99009","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Israeli drone kills deputy Hamas chief in Beirut<\/a><\/p>\n

BEIRUT, Jan 2 (Reuters) – Deputy Hamas chief Saleh al-Arouri was killed on Tuesday night in an Israeli drone strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs of Dahiyeh, a stronghold of the allied Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, three security sources told Reuters.<\/p>\n

In response to questions from Reuters, the Israeli military said it does not respond to reports in the foreign media.<\/p>\n

Lebanon’s national news agency said six people were killed when the drone struck a Hamas office. Two security sources said the strike had targeted a meeting and that another Palestinian militant commander was among them, but there were no details on the additional four casualties.<\/p>\n

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.”<\/p>\n

“Whoever did this did a surgical strike against the Hamas leadership,” Regev said in the interview.<\/p>\n

Arouri was deputy head of Hamas’s politburo and a founder of its military wing, the Qassam Brigades, which carried out a deadly assault in Israeli territory on Oct. 7.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

He had spent time recently in both Lebanon and Qatar, which has mediated talks between Hamas and Israel including on hostages Hamas took in its Oct. 7 assault. The U.S., which brands Hamas a terrorist group, had last year offered $5 million for information on Arouri.<\/p>\n

Hamas-affiliated Al-Aqsa radio confirmed Arouri’s killing. Hamas politburo member Izzat al-Sharq called it a “cowardly assassination.”<\/p>\n

Islamic Jihad vowed revenge in a statement, saying: “This crime will not go unpunished and the resistance will continue until the occupation is removed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Iran said the killing would further galvanize the fight against Israel, while Yemen’s Houthi movement expressed condolences.<\/p>\n

In Ramallah in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, hundreds took to the streets to urge retaliation, shouting “Revenge, revenge, Qassam.”<\/p>\n

‘NEW CRIME’
\nA Reuters witness in Dahiyeh saw firefighters and paramedics gathered around a multi-storey building with a gaping hole in what appeared to be the third floor. Limbs and other pieces of flesh could be seen on the roadside.<\/p>\n

Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister Najib Mikati called the strike a “new Israeli crime” and said it was an attempt to pull Lebanon into war. His office said he asked Lebanon’s foreign minister to file a complaint to the United Nations Security Council.<\/p>\n

Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah plans an address on Wednesday to commemorate the fourth anniversary of the killing of Iranian Quds Force chief Qassem Suleimani in a U.S. drone strike on Baghdad.<\/p>\n

In a televised speech in August, Nasrallah had cautioned Israel against carrying out any assassinations on Lebanese soil, vowing a “severe reaction.”<\/p>\n

Hezbollah controls security in the southern suburb of Dahiyeh. In 2019, two Israeli drones crashed in the district.<\/p>\n

Hezbollah has been exchanging near-daily fire with Israel across Lebanon’s southern frontier since Hamas carried out the Oct. 7 attack.<\/p>\n

Israeli air strikes and shelling have killed more than 100 Hezbollah fighters and nearly two dozen civilians since then, including children, elderly and several journalists.<\/p>\n

Israel says 1,200 people were killed and 240 were taken hostage on Oct. 7, and Israel has responded with a nearly three-month-old offensive in Hamas-run Gaza where Palestinian health officials say the death toll has surpassed 22,000.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Israeli drone kills deputy Hamas chief in Beirut BEIRUT, Jan 2 (Reuters) – Deputy Hamas chief Saleh al-Arouri was killed on Tuesday night in an Israeli drone strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs of Dahiyeh, a stronghold of the allied Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, three security sources told Reuters. In response to questions from Reuters, the … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[97,34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-99009","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-international","category-moslems-jihadis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99009","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=99009"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99009\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":99010,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99009\/revisions\/99010"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=99009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=99009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=99009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}