Israel, Fulfilling its Pledge to Stop Hamas From Fulfilling Its Pledge

"The IDF is in a very high state of readiness in all arenas, in defence and offence."

"The most important thing to say tonight is that we are focused and remain focused on fighting Hamas."

IDF spokesman Rear-Admiral Daniel Hagari

"Whoever did it, it must be clear that this was not an attack on the Lebanese state."

"It was not an attack even on Hezbollah, the terrorist organization."

"Whoever did this did a surgical strike against the Hamas leadership. Whoever did this has a gripe with Hamas."

"That is very clear."

Israeli government adviser Mark Regev

Saleh al-Arouri (left) masterminded attacks in the occupied West Bank  Reuters

 

Although unacknowledged publicly, an Israeli strike was responsible for the elimination of yet another Hamas elite commander in Lebanon. Saleh al-Arouri, considered the most senior figure within Hamas to lose his life since the Israeli invasion of Gaza -- to fulfill Israel's pledge to destroy the terrorist group and all its functionaries in the wake of the October 7 atrocities perpetrated in southern Israel. 

 

Hamas's Arouri served the terrorist group as its penultimate-ranking political leader; his death on Tuesday marks a potential escalation, heightening the risk of a wider Middle East conflict. 

Arouri is credited with being a founder of Hamas's 'military wing' (the Izz al-Din al-Qassem brigades), as separate, presumably, from its administrative wing as the ruling government of the Gaza Strip. Observers feel convinced this man's death might conceivably provoke major retaliation by Lebanon's Hezbollah militia, a Shiite terrorist counterpart to Sunni Hamas, in league under the persuasive influence of the Islamic Republic of Iran whose IRGC helped found Hezbollah, with the Republic funding, arming and directing both terrorist groups as Iranian proxies, to destroy Israel.

"[Hezbollah considers Arouri's death] to be a serious assault on Lebanon, its people, its security, sovereignty, and resistance, and the highly symbolic and significant political and security messages it contains."

"[The attack was] a dangerous development in the course of the war... and we in Hezbollah affirm that this crime will never pass without response and punishment."

"Its hand is on the trigger, and its resistors are in the highest levels of readiness and preparedness."

Hezbollah official statement

AFP

An apartment in a building in a Shiite district of Beirut known to be a Hezbollah stronghold was hit by the strike. Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the Lebanese based Iran-proxy terrorist group vowed that the event would not go unacknowledged. Hezbollah, he warned, is prepared to strike against the targeting of Palestinian officials in Lebanon by Israel. As it is, the Israeli military has been exchanging fire with Hezbollah on a fairly daily basis over the Israeli-Lebanese border for the past three months.

The conflict has the potential to spiral into all-out war on Israel's northern border region, should Hezbollah launch a significant attack. To the present, although Hezbollah has initiated almost-daily provocations over the border, its response to the Gaza conflict has been relatively restrained; signifying its solidarity with Hamas without committing a military infraction serious enough to bring the IDF to a significant reprisal.

Intervention by the United States has seen efforts to prevent the conflict's spread. Hezbollah has been repeatedly warned -- along with its puppetmaster Iran -- not to succumb to the allure of escalating the violence. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeated his vow to press forward with the Gaza assault until such time that Hamas has been crushed, and the remaining hostages are freed from Gaza, and returned home to Israel, an estimated 120 in number.

 

This event marks the first time that Israel has reached into the territory of another country for the purpose of targeting the upper echelon of Hamas leaders who live in exile around the region, to place them out of easy reach of Israel's attempts at assassination for their critical roles in manipulating Hamas operatives in their mission to destroy Israel. 

 

A number of mid-level Hamas leaders have been killed in Gaza, but this time an operation succeeded in dispatching a higher-level target elsewhere. Once again, Israel has demonstrated that old adage of a threat: 'you can run and you can hide, but  you cannot escape justice'. The strike was a demonstration of the precision of sophisticated intelligence and military capabilities.