by Many Israelis welcomed the assassination of a senior Hamas official in Beirut as a necessary, even inevitable, step in the campaign to destroy Hamas that Israel has been waging since the terrorist group’s brutal attacks on October 7.
But some analysts said the killing of official Saleh al-Arouri on Tuesday carries risks for Israel and the benefits are unclear. The killing seemed likely to freeze any talks between Israel and Hamas about the release of more hostages taken on October 7, dealing another setback for families desperately waiting for their loved ones to return home.
While the death of al-Arouri, a key strategist and liaison to Hamas’s Iranian backers, was a blow to the group, analysts said, it has recovered before. And the killing raises tensions along Israel’s northern border with Lebanon, home to Hezbollah, another Iran-backed group that has waged war with Israel. Frequent rocket fire by Hezbollah has forced the evacuation of border communities, and the group has warned that any killing in Lebanon would provoke a forceful response.
Still, members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government welcomed the assassination and the show of force it demonstrated. “Thus your enemies will perish, Israel,” Bezalel Smotrich, the far-right finance minister, wrote on social media, citing the Old Testament.
Danny Danon, a member of Parliament for Netanyahu’s Likud party, posted: “Everyone involved in the October massacre should know that we will get to them and settle the score.”
Israel has not claimed responsibility for the attack that killed al-Arouri and several comrades, but officials in Hamas, Lebanon and the United States have said Israel was behind it, which the Israelis seemed to take for granted.
On Wednesday, a State Department spokesman, Matthew Miller, said at a daily news briefing that the United States had not been warned of the attack. “We continue to believe that it is not in Hezbollah’s interest, nor is it in Israel’s interest, to escalate this conflict in any way,” he said.
Given the multiple risks and unclear benefits, Ehud Olmert, the former prime minister, questioned why the decision was made to kill al-Arouri now. al-Arouri’s focus had always been the West Bank, not Gaza, he said.
“Was it that important? “I’m not so sure,” Olmert said. “There is room to ask this question. Was it urgent? Was it important to do this now? And was it more important than other things?
Many hostage families are increasingly skeptical of Netanyahu’s promises to make the captives’ return a top priority in the war, and fear they could be killed or mistreated in retaliation for the killing.
“Of course this doesn’t help, it hurts,” said Lior Peri, whose father, Chaim, 79, was kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir Oz. “I don’t know who is in charge and giving the order, but they are definitely not thinking about the hostages.”
“A gamble” is how a column in the Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronoth called the assassination on Wednesday.
“Of all the possible reactions that Hamas can have, the most disconcerting is the one regarding the hostages,” wrote columnist Nachum Barnea. “The argument that the assassination will soften Sinwar’s position is just a story we tell ourselves,” he wrote, referring to Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, adding that the assassination would likely “delay, or even torpedo, the negotiations.” for his release.
Netanyahu met with representatives of the hostage families on Tuesday night, around the same time the attack took place, and told them that efforts to free their loved ones were continuing. “Contacts are being maintained; They haven’t been cut,” he said.
Israel, familiar with the seemingly endless cycle of attacks and counterattacks in the Middle East, is bracing for retaliation.
Many residents living along the northern border with Lebanon have already been displaced from their homes for months due to rocket fire by Hezbollah, with whom al-Arouri had worked closely.
After the assassination, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, the Israeli military’s chief spokesman, said in a televised briefing that Israeli forces were “on very high alert on all fronts, for defensive and offensive actions.” He emphasized that Israel was “focused on fighting Hamas,” in what some Israeli analysts interpreted as a suggestion that he was not seeking a broader war with Hezbollah.
Israeli public support for the destruction of Hamas is broad but not unconditional: after almost three months of war in Gaza, and amid growing international pressure to limit the growing number of Palestinian civilian deaths, many Israelis are beginning to express out loud questions about whether the goal is realistic and whether the country could bear the cost it would cost to achieve it.
Most Hamas leaders inside Gaza have evaded capture, and although Israel has begun withdrawing some troops from the enclave in what appears to be the beginning of a shift to a new phase of the war, few in the country were prepared. for a conflict of this length and with so many casualties.
Michael Crowley contributed with reports.
