Mourners gather during the funeral of deputy head of Hamas, Saleh al-Arouri, who was killed by what Lebanese and Palestinian security sources say was a drone strike by Israel in Beirut, Lebanon, on January 4, 2024. (Reuters)

Mourners gather in Beirut for funeral of Hamas commander Saleh al-Arouri

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Mourners formed a funeral procession in Beirut on Thursday for deceased Hamas commander Saleh al-Arouri.

The drone strike on al-Arouri, the deputy political head of Hamas and a founder of the group’s military wing, follows a long line of suspected Israeli killings of senior militant leaders over the years.

While Israel did not claim responsibility for Tuesday’s blast, it had all the hallmarks of an Israeli attack.

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Both Hamas and Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group immediately blamed Israel.

The killing of the top Hamas commander in an apparent Israeli airstrike on a Beirut apartment on Tuesday has given Israel an important symbolic achievement in its three-month-old war against the Islamic militant group.

Israel rarely takes responsibility for targeted assassinations or comments publicly on its forces’ forays abroad.

It took 25 years for the country to acknowledge its role in killing Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s deputy, Khalil al-Wazir, known as Abu Jihad, in Tunisia in 1988.

The strike that killed al-Arouri came just over a week after another suspected Israeli airstrike outside of Damascus killed Seyed Razi Mousavi, a longtime adviser of the Iranian paramilitary Revolutionary Guard in Syria.

Read more:

Hezbollah won’t ‘be silent’ after Israeli killing of top Hamas official: Nasrallah

Israel ready ‘for any scenario’ after strike kills Hamas deputy chief in Lebanon

Palestinians strike across West Bank, Jerusalem after Hamas official assassinated

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