Lebanese state media reported on Tuesday evening that an Israeli drone hit Hamas offices in the Da’ahia district of southern Beirut. According to the reports, four were killed in the explosion, including a senior Palestinian official. Islamic Republic state media later confirmed that Hamas leader number 2 Saleh al-Arouri was killed in an explosion in Beirut tonight. This is a significant development. Israeli intelligence has been trying to kill al-Arouri for years and the United States had a 5 million dollar bounty on his head, offering up to $5 million for “information leading to the identification or location” of Hamas’s No. 2 through its Rewards for Justice program. Al-Arouri is a deputy political leader for Hamas and one of the founders of al-Qassam Brigades, the so-called military wing of Hamas. The deputy chairman of the Hamas political bureau since 2017, 58-year-old al-Arouri is one of the group’s key political leaders. Accused by Israel and the US of financing and overseeing Hamas’s military operations in Yehudah and Shomron, where he is originally from, Arouri has been on the US list of terrorists since 2015. Arouri is believed to have been involved in planning the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers in the summer of 2014. He publicly celebrated the murders as a “heroic operation”, according to the US State Department. On October 25, the Hezbollah-owned Al-Manar TV channel reported that Arouri held a meeting with Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and the head of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Ziyad al-Nakhalah. Israeli troops blew up his family home on October 31, but local residents said it was unoccupied at the time. The Israeli military arrested around 20 people on October 21, including Arouri’s brother and nine of his nephews, in the village of Arura near Ramallah. Several days ago, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said: “If you hear that we attacked Beirut, you’ll know that they [Hezbollah] crossed a red line.” Earlier today, two rockets fired by Hezbollah scored direct hits on the Israeli yishuv of Shlomi, causing property damage. (YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)