Jerusalem did not give advanced notice to the United States before eliminating Hamas deputy leader Saleh al-Arouri in Beirut on Tuesday night, according to Israeli media.
Several other operatives of the Gaza-based terror group were killed in the precision drone strike, with the explosion rocking the Beirut suburb of Dahiyeh, a Hezbollah stronghold, according to Walla!.
The Israeli news site quoted two unnamed American officials as saying that Washington was not warned of the attack. An Israeli official confirmed this to Walla!, saying that the Biden administration was informed of the attack while it was underway.
Israel has not publicly taken responsibility for the assassination. However, al-Arouri was one of the top Hamas leaders on Israel’s target list following the terrorist group’s Oct. 7 massacre.
In a statement cited by Saudi Arabia’s Al Arabiya channel on Tuesday, Hamas described al-Arouri as the “architect” of the massacre.
For its part, Hamas in a statement following the assassination warned that “all options are open” in response to the hit, while member of the Hamas Political Bureau Azat al-Rishek said that “the cowardly assassinations carried out by the Zionist occupation of the leaders and symbols of our Palestinian people inside and outside of Palestine will not succeed in breaking the will and steadfastness of our people, or undermining the continuation of their courageous resistance.”
The Hezbollah-affiliated Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar wrote that “hours before Hezbollah marked the anniversary of the assassination of the former commander of the Quds Force, Qassem Soleimani, Israel decided to violate the rules of confrontation with Lebanon, crossed the red line established by Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah several months ago and assassinated Saleh al-Arouri in an aerial attack in the Dahiya district in Beirut.”
Despite reports of a postponement, Nasrallah is still scheduled to deliver a speech on Wednesday at 6 p.m.
Hezbollah’s Iranian backers also remarked on the assassination, with Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian tweeting that “such a cowardly terrorist operation proves that the Zionist regime 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. The evil activity of this regime’s terror machine in other countries is a real threat to peace and security and a serious alarm for the security of all countries in the region.”
