Israeli drones kill a group of Hamas leaders
Deputy Hamas chief Saleh al-Arouri was killed on Tuesday night in an Israeli drone strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs of Dahiyeh, a stronghold of the allied Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, signalling the conflict between Hamas and Israel could be expanding to engulf more of the region.
In response to questions from Reuters, the Israeli military said it does not respond to reports in the foreign media.
Lebanon’s national news agency said the drone struck a Hamas office. Two security sources said the strike had targeted a meeting between Hamas officials and Lebanon’s Sunni Islamist Jama’a Islamiya faction and left a total of four Palestinians and three Lebanese dead.
The strike marks the first targeted assassination of a Hamas official outside Palestinian Territories since the Palestinian group’s deadly assault on Israeli territory on Oct. 7. …
Hamas confirmed Arouri’s killing and said Qassam Brigade officials Samir Findi Abu Amer and Azzam Al-Aqraa Abu Ammar were also killed. …
Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh on Tuesday said Arouri’s killing is “terrorist act,” a violation of Lebanon’s sovereignty and an expansion of Israel’s hostility against Palestinians.
Those killed were military leaders of the Gazan government, which on October 7 had perpetrated a vicious and widespread attack on Israel with no provocation. Israel has declared war in response. So this is neither a war crime nor a terrorist act, although the Hamas-lovers will believe it is.
And then there’s this:
Iran said the killing would further galvanize the fight against Israel, while Yemen’s Houthi movement expressed condolences.
In Ramallah in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, hundreds took to the streets to urge retaliation, shouting “Revenge, revenge, Qassam.”
Like before they were restrained, and now they’re going to step it up? Of course, Hezbollah could step it up and/or Iran could step it up, but whether they do that and when they do that and how they do that will not be determined by Arouri’s death but by tactical and strategic considerations. Those parties on the Arab and Iranian side are committed to Israel’s destruction.
The Israeli press is somewhat more forthcoming about Arouri’s stature in the terrorist hierarchy [emphasis mine]:
Based in Lebanon, Arouri, 57, was one of the founders of Hamas’s military wing, deputy head of the terror group’s political bureau and considered the de facto leader of Hamas’s military wing in the West Bank, though he has long resided elsewhere. He was regarded as the most notorious Hamas figure in orchestrating West Bank terrorism against Israel. …
Israeli intelligence officials believe that among numerous other attacks, Arouri helped plan the June 2014 kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teens — Gil-ad Shaar, Eyal Yifrach and Naftali Fraenkel.
He served several terms in Israeli jails, and was released in March 2010 as part of efforts to reach a larger prisoner swap for Gilad Shalit, an IDF corporal kidnapped by Hamas in 2006. Arouri went on to be involved in sewing up the deal that provided for the release of more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails in return for the freeing of Shalit in 2011.
That history of having been in Israeli prisons and released for Shalit was the case for so many of the masterminds of the October 7 attack. It was an incredibly costly trade which again points out how dangerous it is to trade terrorist prisoners for hostages. Of course, that already has been done recently in exchange for some of the October 7 hostages, but at least the prisoners exchanged in that deal were lower-level terrorists than those released in 2010 and 2011.
There had been a five million dollar bounty on Arouri’s head, but Israel didn’t get him till now. I’m curious what led them to him at this point, although I’m pretty sure I’ll never know. Are there more moles now? Have Israeli intelligence tools improved? Did someone in another Arab country that’s very threatened by Hamas’ behavior spill the beans on Arouri?
As is said elsewhere, to do this as it was done requires to know who, when, where. Keeping track of whatever big shots might be in the meeting and….wait, this other guy is going to be in next Wednesday.
Could have gotten him any old time, if they knew where he was or would be. The Israelis knew something was going down and they could get a number of birds with one stone.
Compared to the knowing, delivering the ordnance was routine, as such things go.
Be interesting to know how much of their operations have to be scrubbed or put on hold pending a frantic search for the Israeli source. And how many individuals and offices are either disrupted or detained on suspicion, thus not doing whatever they’re supposed to be doing.
And if the Iranians treat the suspects to the usual Iranian interrogation, those one or two degrees of separation from the victims may well have a change of heart.
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Great news! Hopefully, included with the explosive were some pig entrails. Otherwise, those killed are enjoying the first of their 72 virgins in ‘paradise’.
To effectively fight a mortal enemy, it helps to understand their motivations and then, do all one can to ‘disappoint’ their expectations.
They have gone to their rewards, and no, I don’t think beautiful virgins to abuse eternally are part of the deal.
On intelligence, it’s clear that Hamas and Iran are not favored by several Arab states in the region.
Being in a celebratory mood:
____________________________________
Tragic: Hamas Loses Two Leaders In One Day
Hamas is reeling after losing two of their most cherished leaders on the same day: military commander Saleh al-Arouri, and Harvard President Claudine Gay.
“This is a devastating loss for our organization and the world,” said Hamas Leader Ismail Haniyeh while throwing a dart at a dartboard with a picture of a Jew on it. “Al-Arouri helped mastermind our glorious murder/rape party of October 7th, 2023. Claudine Gay presided over the preaching of our message Jew-hatred in America’s Ivy League. This is an incalculable loss.”
Ismail Haniyeh then went back to his game of darts while sitting in a jacuzzi and having his shoulders massaged by a high-priced escort from Dubai.
https://babylonbee.com/news/tragic-hamas-loses-two-leaders-in-one-day
🙂 I saw that, huxley. Brutal.
I’m glad Saleh al-Arouri is dead by drone.
But … O brave new world of slaughterbots.
These weigh less than a plum and fit in the palm of your hand. They are equipped with facial recognition.
Connect the dots.
–“Slaughterbots” (2017)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CO6M2HsoIA
Relax. Slaughterbots don’t exist … yet.
________________________________________
Microdrones: the AI assassins set to become weapons of mass destruction
Slaughterbots, of course, is not a documentary. But how close are we to the real thing?
Stuart Russell is professor of computer science at the University of California, and was a sponsor of the 2017 film, which has now been viewed more than 75 million times.
Perhaps it’s his measured British accent, or the box of PG Tips visible in his Berkley office as we talk via Zoom, but he doesn’t come across as a common or garden doom monger. In fact, he is one of the world’s leading brains in this field and delivered last year’s Reith Lectures on the subject of living with artificial intelligence.
The key point, he says, is that the technologies required for a lethal microdrone of the type portrayed in the film already exist. They just need to be improved in some areas, shrunk down and integrated.
“There are some technical issues in miniaturisation which have to do with batteries and range and how much onboard power you need to support the computer processing you need to have a fully autonomous system,” he said. “But really that’s an engineering task. There’s no science fiction stuff that needs to happen. On most of that we’re already there.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/terror-and-security/drone-assassins-micro-killing-machine/
“Arouri helped plan the June 2014 kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teens — Gil-ad Shaar, Eyal Yifrach and Naftali Fraenkel.”
.
And:
” He served several terms in Israeli jails, and was released in March 2010 as part of efforts to reach a larger prisoner swap for Gilad Shalit, an IDF corporal kidnapped by Hamas in 2006. … ”
.
Are the dates wrong? Or were the kidnapping / murders truly in 2014, AFTER his prison stent?
I said a few days ago that the US seemed to be funding all sides in the Middle East, and streiff has the numbers.
https://redstate.com/streiff/2024/01/03/your-tax-dollars-helped-hamas-hide-their-october-7-planning-from-israels-intelligence-services-n2168267
Basically, the entire Lebanese police and military is paid by the US, which of course filters down to helping Hezbollah as well. The work we funded included uprooting Israeli intelligence networks.
“None of this is to say that the Biden national security goat rope knew the attack was coming, but it is hard to see how the outcome differed from being an active participant. Had we not been overawed by our cleverness and let Lebanon descend into its natural state, which is chaos and violence, Hamas would not have had a secure area in which to plan and to train, and the coming attack would probably have been discovered, and prevented.”
A movie I enjoyed was “Eye in the Sky” ,which included tiny drones the size of bumble bees. At the time I was still working part time at the Los Angeles MEPS, the military recruit processing center. The next day or so, I was examining a guy who was joining the reserves (can’t remember which branch) and we got talking. He told me he was joining to work on those tiny drones. He assured me that those in the movie existed.
is that the one with alan rickman, as a security bureaucrat
yes the kidnapping were subsequent to the prisoner exchange
https://twitter.com/omriceren/status/1742302302239658067
rickman’s lilt was welsh right,
Seeing pictures of these Hamas leaders in meetings remind me of the idea of “the banality of evil.”
These Hamas leaders look like businessmen, dressed in dark suits with shirts open at the collars. They could be kindly fathers, uncles, or grandfathers. Who would guess from the photos that these men have planned and approved of the most savage crimes imaginable?
An example:
https://www.nydailynews.com/2023/10/25/hamas-hezbollah-islamic-jihad-meeting-lebanon-israel/
Good, now go get the rest.
think of them, as a modern day appalachin conference, with a drone instead of
a warrant
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