Israeli drone kills deputy Hamas chief in Beirut
Deputy Hamas chief Saleh al-Arouri was killed on Tuesday night in an Israeli drone strike on Beirut's southern suburbs of Dahiyeh, a stronghold of the allied Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, signalling the conflict between Hamas and Israel could be expanding to engulf more of the region, Reuters reports.
An Israeli spokesman said Saleh al-Arouri had died in a "surgical strike against the Hamas leadership".
Hamas condemned the death, while its ally Hezbollah said it was an assault on Lebanese sovereignty.
Lebanon's prime minister, meanwhile, accused Israel of trying "to drag Lebanon into... confrontation".
Lebanese media report that Arouri, a deputy political leader of Hamas, was killed in a drone strike in southern Beirut along with six others - two Hamas military commanders and four other members, CNN reports.
He was a key figure in the Qassam Brigades, Hamas's armed wing, and a close ally of Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas leader. He had been in Lebanon acting as a connection between his group and Hezbollah.
Arouri, 57, is the most senior Hamas figure to be killed since Israel went to war with the group after its 7 October attack.
On that day, waves of Hamas gunmen invaded Israel and attacked communities around the border, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking around 240 to Gaza as hostages.
Israel launched a military offensive in response, with the declared aim of destroying Hamas.
Since then, more than 22,000 Palestinians - mostly women and children - have been killed in Israeli strikes on Gaza, according to Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry.
Hezbollah has fired scores of rockets into Israel and fought several skirmishes with Israeli forces during the Gaza war.
