explosion
Saleh al-Aruri, the deputy head of the political bureau of Islamist Hamas, has reportedly died in a blast in Beirut. According to multiple reports, Hamas and two Lebanese security officials confirmed Aruri's “killing” on their official media on Tuesday.
Earlier, TPA had reported on Aruri's death, among others. dpa learned of this from Hezbollah militant sources after Tuesday evening's explosion. Al-Manar, a Hezbollah-affiliated television station, reported Aruri's death.
According to the Lebanese state news agency NNA, a total of 6 people were killed in the Israeli attack. “The death toll has risen to six,” it said. Accordingly, a meeting of Palestinian groups was underway at the Hamas office at the time of the attack. The company initially reported four deaths. “A hostile Israeli drone” struck a Hamas office in Al-Musharrafiya, near Al-Sharq Switzerland.
A stronghold of Hezbollah fighters
“Sheikh Saleh al-Aruri, deputy head of the Hamas Political Bureau, was martyred in a Zionist attack in Beirut,” Hamas announced on its official television channel Al-Aqsa TV and its other media outlets. An AFP photographer at the scene saw two floors of a building destroyed and vehicles damaged. Ambulances rushed to the scene of the attack.
The region is a stronghold of Iran-backed Hezbollah militants. Information cannot be independently verified. The Israeli military told the BBC it would not comment on reports in foreign media.
It was Israel's first attack on a target in the Lebanese capital since fighting between Israel and Hamas began on October 7 – and the first in which a senior Palestinian official was killed by Israel. So far, clashes between the Israeli army and Lebanese Hezbollah fighters, an ally of Palestinian Hamas, have been limited to the border areas of southern Lebanon.
