_By Tia Goldenberg, Fadi Tawil and Sami Magdy, Associated Press
JERUSALEM (AP) — The chief of Israel’s Mossad intelligence service vowed Wednesday that the company would seek out each Hamas member concerned within the Oct. 7 assault on Israel, irrespective of the place they’re. His pledge got here a day after the deputy head of the Palestinian terrorist group was killed in a suspected Israeli strike in Beirut.
Israel has refused to touch upon experiences it carried out the killing, however the feedback by David Barnea seemed to be the strongest indication but it was behind the blast. He made a comparability to the aftermath of 1972 Munich Massacre, when Mossad brokers tracked down and killed a string of Palestinian militants concerned in killing Israeli athletes at that yr’s Olympic video games.
Israel was on excessive alert Wednesday for an escalation with Lebanon’s highly effective Hezbollah militia after the strike within the Lebanese capital killed Saleh Arouri, probably the most senior Hamas member slain because the conflict in Gaza erupted practically three months in the past.
Hamas has been designated as a terrorist group by the United States, Canada and the European Union.
The implications of the killing for the conflict stay unclear. Israel has killed a number of prime Hamas leaders over time, solely to see them rapidly changed. The strike in Hezbollah’s southern Beirut stronghold may trigger the low-intensity combating alongside the Lebanon border to boil over into all-out conflict.
Much is determined by how Hassan Nasrallah — who has led Hezbollah since an Israeli strike killed his predecessor in 1992 — chooses to reply. He has beforehand vowed to retaliate for any Israeli concentrating on of allied militant leaders in Lebanon, and was anticipated to ship a speech at 6 p.m. Wednesday.
But Arouri’s killing supplied a morale increase for Israelis nonetheless reeling from the Oct. 7 assault because the combatants proceed to place up stiff resistance in Gaza and maintain scores of hostages.
Barnea stated the Mossad is “committed to settling accounts with the murderers who raided the Gaza envelope,” referring to the realm of southern Israel that Hamas attacked. He vowed to pursue everybody concerned, “directly or indirectly,” together with “planners and envoys.”
“It’ll take time, as it took time after the Munich massacre, but we will put our hands on them wherever they are,” he stated. Barnea was talking on the funeral of former Mossad head Zvi Zamir, who died at age 98 a day earlier.
Zamir headed the intelligence company on the time of the 1972 Munich Olympic assault, by which Palestinian militants killed 11 members of the Israeli delegation. Israel subsequently killed members of the Black September militant group who carried out the assault.
LOOKING TO HEZBOLLAH
Hezbollah and the Israeli army have been exchanging hearth virtually each day over the Israeli-Lebanese border because the conflict in Gaza started.
But Nasrallah has appeared reluctant to escalate it additional, maybe fearing a repeat of the monthlong 2006 conflict, when Israel closely bombed Beirut and southern Lebanon. A return of that destruction now would doubtless heighten opposition to Hezbollah inside Lebanon.
At the identical time, Hezbollah additionally faces stress to point out help for its ally Hamas. Leaders within the Palestinian group clearly count on Hezbollah to have its again.
In an interview Saturday, three days earlier than Arouri’s killing, The Associated Press requested Beirut-based Hamas political official Osama Hamdan if the group was anxious about the opportunity of Israel assassinating its officers in Lebanon.
Hamdan predicted that Hezbollah wouldn’t let that go unpunished, and an all-out conflict would ensue. “So why would Israel want to do that? Does it want a war” in Lebanon? he requested. “War can happen if Israel acts wrongly and aggressively,” he stated, or conflict may not happen “if Israel takes a step back and acts in a way that is not aggressive against Lebanon.”
Hezbollah vowed “response and punishment” for the strike. Israeli army spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari stated Israeli forces have been “on high readiness for any scenario.”
Hezbollah stated Wednesday that its fighters carried out at the least eight assaults in opposition to Israeli posts alongside the border, together with 4 utilizing heavy warhead Burkan rockets. The assertion didn’t straight hyperlink the fireplace to Arouri’s killing.
The United States has sought to forestall any widening of the battle, together with by deploying two plane carriers and different army property to the area. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was anticipated within the area this week.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and different Israeli officers have repeatedly threatened to kill Hamas leaders wherever they’re. The group’s Oct. 7 assault from Gaza into southern Israel killed round 1,200 individuals, and a few 240 others have been taken hostage.
Israel claims to have killed plenty of mid-level Hamas leaders in Gaza, however this is able to be the primary time because the conflict that it has reached into one other nation to focus on the group’s prime leaders, a lot of whom stay in exile across the area.
Arouri was the deputy of Hamas’ supreme political chief, Ismail Haniyeh, and headed the group’s presence within the Israeli-occupied West Bank. He was additionally a key liaison with Hezbollah.
ISRAEL SEEKS A ‘CLEAR VICTORY’ IN GAZA
The focus of the conflict stays on Gaza, the place Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant stated Israel is in search of a “clear victory” over Hamas, which has dominated the territory since 2007.
Israel’s air, floor and sea assault in Gaza has killed greater than 22,300 individuals, two-thirds of them ladies and youngsters, in keeping with the Health Ministry within the Hamas-ruled territory. The rely doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants.
The marketing campaign has pushed some 85% of Gaza’s inhabitants from their houses, forcing a whole lot of 1000’s of individuals into overcrowded shelters or teeming tent camps in Israeli-designated secure areas that the army has nonetheless bombed. 1 / 4 of Gaza’s inhabitants face hunger, in keeping with the United Nations, as Israeli restrictions and heavy combating hinder help supply.
Still, Israel seems removed from attaining its objectives of crushing Hamas and returning the estimated 129 hostages nonetheless held by the group.
Gallant stated a number of thousand Hamas fighters stay in northern Gaza, the place Israeli troops have been battling combatants for over two months and the place total neighborhoods have been blasted into rubble.
Heavy combating can be underway in central Gaza and the southern metropolis of Khan Younis, the place Israeli officers say Hamas’ army construction remains to be largely intact. Yehya Sinwar, Hamas’ prime chief in Gaza, and his deputies have to this point eluded Israeli forces.
Egypt, which together with Qatar has served as a mediator between Israel and Hamas, has proposed a multistage plan for ending the conflict by which all hostages would finally be launched in trade for Palestinians imprisoned by Israel. Israel would withdraw from Gaza, and a authorities of Palestinian technocrats would govern Gaza and elements of the occupied West Bank till elections are held.
Neither Israel nor Hamas have accepted the plan in its entirety, however neither has rejected it outright.
An Israeli delegation was in Cairo on Wednesday to debate the proposal, in keeping with an Egyptian official who was not licensed to transient media and spoke on situation of anonymity. The official stated the killing of Arouri was prone to hamper the negotiations for a pair days.
Tawil reported from Beirut and Magdy from Cairo.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”