Al Mayadeen channel affiliated with Hezbollah reported that the deputy leader of Hamas movement abroad, Saleh al-Arouri, was killed in an Israeli strike in the southern suburbs of Beirut.

Israel has not yet commented on the alleged strike.

In a press conference held in November, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he "ordered Mossad to act against Hamas leaders wherever they are" following the Hamas attack on southern Israel on October 7. In the same press conference, Defense Minister Yoav Galant said all Hamas leaders "live in a lost time... the struggle is global".

Al-Arouri (57 years old), residing in Lebanon, was the deputy head of the political bureau of the movement and is considered the actual leader of Hamas' military wing in the West Bank.

Israeli intelligence officials believe that al-Arouri also helped plan the kidnapping and killing of three Israeli teenagers in June 2014 – Gil-Ad Shaar, Eyal Yifrah, and Naftali Frenkel – in addition to many other attacks.

He had spent several periods in Israeli prisons and was released in March 2010 as part of efforts to reach a larger deal to exchange prisoners for Gilad Shalit, a sergeant in the Israeli army who was kidnapped by Hamas in 2006. Al-Arouri continued to participate in concluding the deal which included the release of more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli prisons in exchange for Shalit’s release in 2011.'

He moved to Istanbul but had to relocate when Israel repaired its relations with Turkey, which were torn due to an Israeli army raid on a solidarity flotilla heading to Gaza where nine Turkish citizens were killed during violent clashes aboard a ferry.

According to the "Times of Israel" newspaper, after spending some time in Syria, al-Arouri eventually moved to Beirut, from where he manages Hamas military operations in the West Bank, drives military activities, and arranges the transfer of funds to pay for attacks.

He was also one of Hamas' officials most closely linked to Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

There, al-Arouri established a local Hamas force from activists in Lebanese refugee camps, and the group enjoys military training and a rocket arsenal, albeit not on the same scale as Hezbollah.

The official Lebanese news agency stated that the explosion that occurred earlier this evening in the southern suburbs of Beirut was the result of an Israeli drone strike targeting a Hamas office in Lebanon, killing four people.

Hamas confirmed the assassination of its deputy leader Saleh al-Arouri earlier tonight in Lebanon by Israel.

Aziz al-Rashq, a senior Hamas official, said in a statement, "The cowardly assassinations carried out by the Zionist occupation against the leaders and symbols of our Palestinian people inside and outside Palestine will not succeed in breaking the will of our people, their steadfastness, or in undermining the continuation of their brave resistance," adding that the strike "once again proves the enemy's severe failure to achieve any of its aggressive goals in the Gaza Strip."

Fatah movement, led by the Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, also announced a general strike tomorrow in response to the alleged Israeli strike that led to the killing of Hamas' deputy leader Saleh al-Arouri in Lebanon earlier this evening.

This announcement also reflects Hamas's popularity in the West Bank, but it is noteworthy that Hamas's support in Gaza – which faced the harshness of the movement's decisions – is not high, according to recent opinion polls.

Member of the Knesset Danny Danon from the Likud party commented on the incident, praising Israeli security forces for killing Hamas deputy leader Saleh al-Arouri outside Beirut.

Meanwhile, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich tweeted, quoting from the Book of Judges, "Thus may all your enemies perish".

Channel 12 reported that Cabinet Secretary Yossi Fuchs sent instructions to ministers ordering them not to speak publicly about the alleged Israeli strike.