Thousands attend funeral of top Hamas leader killed in apparent Israeli strike on Beirut
BEIRUT — Thousands of people took to the streets of Beirut on Thursday for the funeral of top Hamas commander Saleh Arouri, who was killed earlier this week in an apparent Israeli airstrike on an apartment in the Lebanese capital.
Draped in Palestinian and Hamas flags, Arouri’s coffin, along with those of two of his comrades, were taken to a Beirut mosque for prayers before being carried to the Palestine Martyrs Cemetery, where top Palestinian officials killed by Israel over the last five decades are buried. Arouri’s automatic rifle was placed on his coffin at the prayer service.
The funeral was attended by Palestinian officials and top Hamas leader Moussa Abu Marzouk, as well as representatives of some Lebanese political groups. People tried to touch the coffins, which were surrounded by Hamas members wearing green caps. Some of the Hamas members were armed.
“The enemy is running away from its failures and defeats [in Gaza] to Lebanon,” Hamas’ top leader, Ismail Haniyeh, said in a speech aired during the funeral. He added that the killing of Arouri in Beirut was “proof of [Israel’s] bloody mentality.”
Lebanese officials and state media said an Israeli drone fired two missiles Tuesday at an apartment in Beirut’s southern Musharafieh district, a stronghold of Lebanon’s powerful Hezbollah group, instantly killing Arouri and six other Hamas members, including military commanders.
Arouri, who was the deputy political head of Hamas and a founder of the group’s military wing, had been in Israel’s sights for years. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had threatened to kill him even before Hamas carried out its deadly Oct. 7 surprise attack on Israel that triggered the brutal ongoing war in Gaza.
An ancient Christian minority in northern Israel, including some who fled from Lebanon decades ago, watch nervously as Israel-Hezbollah tensions rise.
Israel had accused Arouri, 57, of masterminding attacks against it in the West Bank, where he was the group’s top commander. In 2015, the U.S. Treasury Department named Arouri a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist” and offered $5 million for information about him.
Arouri’s killing further raises tensions in the already-volatile Middle East, which has been roiled by Israel’s ground offensive in Gaza, daily exchanges of fire between Israeli troops and Hezbollah fighters along the Lebanon-Israel border and attacks by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels on ships passing through the Red Sea.
On Wednesday, Israeli airstrikes on southern Lebanon killed nine Hezbollah members, including a local commander, in one of the highest death tolls for the group since the fighting along the Lebanon-Israel border began Oct. 8. Since then, Hezbollah has lost 143 fighters.
On Thursday, an airstrike on the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, killed a high-ranking commander of an Iran-backed group. The group blamed the U.S. for the attack; an American official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t permitted to speak publicly, confirmed that the U.S. military had carried out the strike.
South Africa has launched a case at the United Nations’ top court alleging Israel’s military campaign in Gaza amounts to genocide against Palestinians.
In a speech Wednesday evening, Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah promised revenge, repeating his group’s statement that the “dangerous crime” of Arouri’s killing would not go “without response and without punishment.” But he specified neither when or how this would happen.
Nasrallah said Hezbollah had so far been careful in its strategic calculus in the conflict, balancing “the need to support Gaza and to take into account Lebanese national interests.” But if the Israelis launch a war on Lebanon, the group is ready for a “fight without limits.”
“They will regret it,” he said. “It will be very, very, very costly.”
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