Israel yesterday kept bombing Gaza after the army warned it is ready for “any scenario” following a drone strike in Lebanon that killed the deputy leader of the Palestinian militant group Hamas, stoking fears of a regional escalation.
Although Israel did not claim the Beirut assassination on Tuesday evening, it was widely assumed to be behind the killing of Saleh al-Aruri, 57, the political No. 2 of Hamas and one of the founders of the Islamist group’s military wing.
After al-Aruri and six other militants were killed in the attack, Israeli army spokesman Daniel Hagari said the military was in a “very high state of readiness in all arenas” and “highly prepared for any scenario.”
Photo: EPA-EFE
The Israeli armed forces again bombed Gaza targets overnight, including in the crowded southern city of Rafah where eyewitnesses said survivors flocked to Mohammed Yousef al-Najjar Hospital to mourn the dead, including a child.
Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas after the militant group’s bloody Oct. 7 attack and has launched a relentless military campaign in Gaza that has claimed more than 22,000 lives, the territory’s health ministry says.
Israel has labeled Hamas’ Gaza leader Yahya Sinwar a “dead man walking” and vowed to also kill other commanders of the Islamist movement considered a “terrorist” group by the US and the EU.
Amid the nearly three-month-old war, Israel has traded almost daily cross-border fire with the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed ally of Hamas, while so far avoiding a full-scale war.
Maha Yahya, director of the Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center think tank, said that although al-Aruri’s killing was “a significant escalation,” Hezbollah might not get involved.
“I don’t think Hezbollah will be willing to drag Lebanon into a major conflict at this particular moment and time given the situation regionally,” Yahya said.
Violence has also flared with other militant groups in the Iran-led “Axis of Resistance,” including in Syria, Iraq and Yemen, where Houthi rebels have attacked cargo vessels in the Red Sea, a key shipping lane for world trade.
Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs Hossein Amir-Abdollahian condemned the “cowardly” Beirut strike and said it proved that Israel “has not achieved any of its goals after weeks of war crimes, genocide and destruction in Gaza and the West Bank of Palestine, despite the direct support of the White House.”
Hezbollah vowed that al-Aruri’s killing would not go unpunished, labeling it “a serious assault on Lebanon ... and a dangerous development.”
Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati charged that the killing “aims to draw Lebanon” deeper into the war, while French President Emmanuel Macron urged Israel to “avoid any escalatory attitude, particularly in Lebanon.”
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