Israel has insisted the assassination of a Hamas leader in Beirut was not an attack on Lebanon, as its enemies warned of “punishment” for his death.

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 a 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.

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.

Israeli spokesman Mark Regev stopped short of confirming Israel had carried out the assassination, a standard position for Israeli officials, but he told MSNBC: “Whoever did it, it must be clear that this was not an attack on the Lebanese state. “It was not an attack even on Hezbollah, the terrorist organisation.”Whoever did this did a surgical strike against the Hamas leadership. Whoever did this has a gripe with Hamas. That is very clear.”

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.

Lebanon’s state news agency said Arouri had been killed by an Israeli drone attack on a Hamas office in the southern Beirut suburb of Dahiyeh.

A witness from Reuters news agency saw firefighters and paramedics gathered around a high-rise building where there was a large hole in what appeared to be the third floor. Video footage on social media showed a car in flames and extensive damage to buildings in what is a busy residential area. Dahiyeh is known as a stronghold of Hezbollah.

Haniyeh, the head of Hamas’s political wing, called the attack a “cowardly… terrorist act, a violation of Lebanon’s sovereignty, and an expansion of its circle of aggression”.

Hezbollah said that it considered Arouri’s death “to be a serious assault on Lebanon, its people, its security, sovereignty, and resistance, and the highly symbolic and significant political and security messages it contains”.

It said the attack was “a dangerous development in the course of the war and we in Hezbollah affirm that this crime will never pass without response and punishment. “Its hand is on the trigger, and its resistors are in the highest levels of readiness and preparedness,” it added.

Iran, a major supporter of both groups, said Arouri’s killing would “undoubtedly ignite another surge in the veins of resistance”.

An Israeli security cabinet meeting scheduled for Tuesday evening to discuss the post-war plan for Gaza was cancelled.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has previously vowed to eliminate Hamas’s leaders, wherever they are.

Arouri was also considered the de facto leader of Hamas’s military wing in the West Bank, overseeing attacks there, according to Israeli media reports. He is believed to have been involved in the kidnapping and killing of three Israeli teenagers in the occupied West Bank in 2014, reports say, and had served time in Israeli jails for other attacks.

The Times of Israel says he was also one of the Hamas officials most closely connected to Iran and Hezbollah.

(BBC)