An American official is on his way to Israel to attempt to negotiate a peace agreement between Lebanese and Israeli officials as the killing of a Hamas official in Beirut has caused a renewed upset in relations, with Hezbollah vowing revenge.
A drone strike on Saleh al-Arouri, the deputy political head of Hamas and a founder of the group’s military wing, follows a long line of suspected Israeli killings of senior militant leaders over the years – although Israel has not taken responsibility and rebuffed the allegations. An official for the U.S. commented earlier that they ‘didn’t have any evidence of Israeli involvement.’
Since Hamas and Israel began their war, there have been near-daily clashes between the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and Israeli forces along the Lebanon-Israel border, with fears of an escalation to a full-scale war. Hezbollah launched rockets on October 8th in support of Hamas, leading to some back-and-forth rockets.
Now, a “special envoy of the US President Amos Hochstein will arrive in Israel tomorrow in an attempt to reach a diplomatic solution in the north.”
Firefighters and civil defense are seen in a damaged building that was allegedly targeted by an Israeli drone strike on January 2, 2024 in Dahiyeh, a suburb of Beirut ( Image: Getty Images)
While Israel has not claimed responsibility, Tuesday’s airstrike had the hallmarks of an Israeli attack. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders have repeatedly threatened to kill Hamas leaders following the group’s deadly Oct. 7 cross-border attack that sparked the war in Gaza.
Meanwhile, Lebanon’s Hezbollah vowed the “crime” would not go unpunished and launched several cross-border attacks on northern Israel. In a televised speech, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, the Secretary-General of Hezbollah, offered his condolences to Hamas.
Israel had accused Arouri, 57, of masterminding attacks against it in the West Bank, where he was the group’s top commander. He also was believed to be a key figure in Hamas’ relations with both Hezbollah and the group’s Iranian patrons.
In 2015, the U.S. Treasury Department designated Arouri as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist, offering $5 million for information about him.
Members of the Civil Defense inspect a vehicle that was damaged near the building hit by a drone strike in the southern suburb of Beirut ( Image: STRINGER/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)
“A movement whose leaders and founders fall as martyrs for the dignity of our people and our nation will never be defeated,” Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh, who is based in the Qatari capital of Doha, said in a televised address.
The ripple effects of the war in Gaza are likely to knock Lebanon’s fragile economy, which had begun making a tepid recovery after years of crisis, back into recession, the World Bank said in a report released Thursday.
Before the outbreak of the ongoing Israel-Hamas war on Oct. 7, the World Bank had projected that Lebanon’s economy would grow in 2023, by a meager 0.2 percent for the first time since 2018, driven largely by remittances sent from Lebanese working abroad and by an uptick in tourism. The tensions put a major damper on travel to Lebanon, at least temporarily.
Hezbollah says 143 members have been killed by Israel during the ongoing skirmishes, mostly in Lebanon, though a few were in Syria. In Lebanon, another 19 operatives from other terror groups, a Lebanese soldier, and at least 19 civilians, three of whom were journalists, have been killed, according to the Times of Israel.
