Top Hamas military official Saleh al-Arouri killed in Beirut blast
CBSN
An explosion in Beirut on Tuesday killed Saleh al-Arouri, a top official with the Palestinian militant group Hamas, and three others, officials with Hamas and the Lebanese group Hezbollah said.
Lebanon's state-run National News Agency said the blast killed six people and was carried out by an Israeli drone. Israeli officials declined to comment.
If Israel is behind the attack it could mark a major escalation in the Middle East conflict. Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has vowed to retaliate against any Israeli targeting of Palestinian officials in Lebanon. Lebanon's Prime Minister Najib Mikati said many people were injured in the explosion, which he called "a crime" and said was meant "to drag Lebanon into a new phase of confrontation with Israel."
Beirut and Gaza — Displaced Palestinians in a tent camp outside the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in central Gaza woke up in the early morning hours Tuesday to a blazing inferno after an Israeli airstrike. The flames spreading quickly from tent to tent. Civilians who'd sought shelter in the camp said there was only one fire extinguisher to try to quash the blaze.
More than a dozen Palestinians, including children, were killed Thursday in an Israeli airstrike on a school in Jabalia, in the northern Gaza Strip, that was sheltering displaced people, the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said. The Israel Defense Forces said in a statement that it had struck "a compound that previously served as the 'Abu Hassan' School," where it said "dozens of terrorists from the Hamas and Islamic Jihad organizations were present."