Top Hamas Official Suspected Killed In Israeli Drone Strike In Beirut

Local journalists and newswires reporting that high-ranking Hamas official Saleh al-Arouri is suspected to have been killed in an Israeli drone strike in the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital Beirut. The strike comes as regional tensions are elevated in response to a blockade of the Red Sea by Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen.

• Arab News reports that the attack comes, "a day before a speech by Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah." So far, Hezbollah has engaged in skirmishes and exchanged rocket fire with Israeli forces on the Lebanon-Israel border but avoided being drawn into a more direct conflict. Observers will be watching closely to see if the strike could prompt Nasrallah to offer a more belligerent tone on Israel.
• The strike, if confirmed, appears to be a major military and intelligence success for the IDF but the hours ahead could be among the most tense of the conflict and any signal of greater involvement in the war from Hezbollah or Iran could risk an escalation of the conflict.
• Tzvi Joffre at the Jerusalem Post: "Hamas deputy leader Saleh al-Arouri was killed in the reported strike. This is somewhat unprecedented since the war in 2006."
• Axios: "Salah al-Arouri, the deputy chairman of Hamas’s political bureau and the commander of the terror group’s military wing in the West Bank, was assassinated in a drone attack in Beirut, according to the Lebanese press."