ISRAEL KILLS SENIOR HAMAS OFFICIAL IN BEIRUT STRIKE
▶ Death of deputy leader Saleh Al Arouri in drone attack marks major escalation of war in Lebanon
The deputy head of Hamas has been killed in an Israeli drone strike on an office in southern Beirut used by the group, the militants said yesterday.
This was the first attack on the Lebanese capital by Israeli forces since the start of the Gaza war in October.
The Hamas office in the suburb of Dahiyeh was struck by an Israeli drone, Lebanon’s National News Agency reported.
Saleh Al Arouri, deputy head of the Hamas political bureau, was killed in the strike, Hamas told media outlets.
Social media footage showed smoke and flames at the site.
The attack marks a major escalation in Israel’s attacks on Lebanon. Until now, they were concentrated on southern border areas and comprised lowlevel clashes, mostly with Iranbacked Hezbollah.
An official from Hezbollah, a close ally of Hamas, said two members of Hamas’s armed wing, the Ezzedine Al Qassam Brigades, were also killed in the drone strike, as well as Ihsan Ataya, a high-ranking member of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s political bureau.
“The occupation will pay the price,” the official said.
At least two others were killed in the blast, although their identities were not immediately known, the NNA reported.
The agency said ambulances were at the scene “to transport the injured”.
It remains to be seen how Hezbollah will respond.
In a televised address last year, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah warned Israel against conducting targeted assassinations in Lebanon.
“Any assassination on Lebanese
lands that targets a Lebanese or a Syrian or an Iranian or a Palestinian will face a strong response,” he said in August.
“We will not allow Lebanon to become a new field of assassinations for Israel.”
More than 150 people, including at least 19 civilians, have been killed in Israeli strikes on Lebanon since the border clashes began on October 8.
Israeli forces increased their strikes in southern Gaza yesterday, killing and injuring dozens of Palestinians in the enclave as the war nears its fourth month.
Residents told The National that Israeli planes and tanks struck Khan Younis in the south early yesterday.
“Israeli air strikes struck fiercely in the central and eastern areas of Khan Younis, with artillery shelling hitting the northern neighbourhoods of the city, resulting in civilian casualties, including children and women,” Palestinian agency Wafa reported.
“Nine civilians lost their lives, and dozens were injured in Khan Younis due to Israeli air strikes.”
In central Gaza, about 15 civilians, mostly women and children, were killed and others injured on Monday night in an Israeli air strike on a house in the city of Deir Al Balah.
The strikes followed an announcement by Israel that it would be withdrawing thousands of troops from the enclave and shifting to “mopping up” operations expected to last for several months, af
ter almost three months of relentless fighting.
Washington has been urging Israel to reduce the intensity of its military operation, and international calls for a ceasefire have been growing louder since the war began on October 7.
According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, more than 22,100 Palestinians have been killed during the fighting, mostly women and children.
The conflict started when Hamas, the militant group that governs Gaza, launched a surprise attack on southern Israel on October 7, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting 240.
In the occupied West Bank, four Palestinians were killed by Israeli troops during the latest in a string of violent clashes that have increased in frequency since the start of the war in Gaza.
Quoting Palestinian security sources, Wafa reported that four Palestinians were shot dead during confrontations that erupted as Israeli troops stormed the town of Azzun, in the northern province of Qalqilya.
In a post on social media, the Israeli military said troops had killed “four armed militants” who had fired at them from a house in Azzun during a counter-terrorism operation. An Israeli soldier was wounded in the exchange.
In Qalqilya, soldiers shot and killed a man who opened fire at them, the military said.
The Palestinian Authority’s Foreign Ministry has condemned “field executions against Palestinian civilians”, saying they are “acts of gangs, not a state claiming democracy”.
“Israel must immediately disclose secret concentration camps and provide names and conditions of those detained from the Gaza Strip,” the ministry said in a post on social media yesterday.
A Palestinian man who had been held in an Israeli jail for more than a year was killed on Monday, the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society NGO reported.
Abdul Al Bahsh, 23, was detained in May 2022, and had been serving a 35-month sentence at Israel’s Majdou prison.
Mr Al Bahsh was the first Palestinian to be killed in Israel’s prisons this year, and the seventh since the start of the Gaza war, the PPS said.
Israeli troops carried out several raids in cities and towns across the West Bank. In Jericho, a teacher was arrested early yesterday, with troops seizing her electronic devices.
At least 11 were detained during a series of raids in Hebron province, while three were arrested in occupied East Jerusalem.
The West Bank has been under Israeli military occupation since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, and tension has escalated since the current outbreak of fighting in Gaza.
About 317 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli security forces and settlers in the West Bank since the war began, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry in Ramallah.
Israel says it has arrested about 2,550 people in the occupied West Bank since the outbreak of the war in the Gaza Strip. However, the UN estimates that the figure is much higher, saying that about 4,785 Palestinians have been detained.
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry has condemned ‘field executions against civilians,’ which it called ‘acts of gangs’
Anew year has brought no respite to the people of Gaza. The death toll from Israel’s ground invasion and aerial bombardment of the Palestinian enclave has pushed on. More than 22,100 Palestinians have been killed in the past three months. More than half of Gaza’s homes have been destroyed or damaged. For the 2.3 million people in Gaza, 85 per cent of whom are now internally displaced, there is inadequate aid coming in but grief is plentiful.
Although it continues to reject calls for a ceasefire and insists the war will continue for “several more months”, Israel’s government on Sunday announced the withdrawal of thousands of Israeli troops for “rest and training”. This will allow many soldiers to return – albeit temporarily – to civilian life. A key driver is the toll the war is having on the economy, with most working-age Israelis on the battlefield.
Of course, if anyone is exhausted and truly in need of a return to “civilian life” after three months of violence, it is the Palestinians themselves. “The war has dismissed us.” Nagham Mohanna, The National’s reporter in Gaza, wrote in these pages.
The suffering is not limited to Gaza. The Israeli army is carrying out widespread raids and arrests in the occupied West Bank, and settler violence there was at an all-time high last year.
But in Gaza, the combination of displaced civilians and overcrowded health facilities is unleashing an enormous array of problems. The World Health Organisation chief Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he was very concerned about the growing threat of infectious diseases.
With little clean water, the enclave has been reduced to a breeding ground for epidemics. This is especially true among children, the elderly and the immunocompromised. About 50,000 pregnant women in Gaza are suffering from malnutrition and health complications. More than 40 per cent of the population is at risk of famine.
Donors have sent aid. The UAE has distributed aid to Palestinians, set up a field hospital and water desalination plants. But Palestinians require more from other countries, and for a more sustained period of time.
While the Israeli government has repeatedly spoken about safe zones for families to flee to, such statements are callous. There are no zones for such a vast number of people that can reasonably be considered safe. The shortages are stark and facilities lack proper sanitation or trained medical staff. Basic needs that any human needs to stay healthy and alive are sorely lacking. Unicef has delivered at least 600,000 vaccine doses, but even that number is not nearly enough.
The international community must renew pressure on Israel to declare a ceasefire. The US, Israel’s chief supporter on the international stage, must realise that the continued onslaught is neither sustainable nor conscionable. But in the absence of that, the world must come together to ensure that there are serious efforts to at least help mitigate the healthcare disaster worsening, amid the threat of famine, in Gaza.