The killing of Hamas leader Saleh al-Arouri in a reported drone strike in Beirut will be perceived as a warning to Iran, which has armed and financed Hamas, and other Hamas leaders, experts said.
Al-Arouri, the commander of Hamas’ military wing in the West Bank and deputy chairman of the group’s political bureau, was a key figure who had helped repair Hamas’ relations with Iran and had been in Israel’s crosshairs even before the current conflict began. He was killed Tuesday with six other members of the organization after his home in a suburb in southern Beirut was targeted by a drone strike.
“There’s no single cog in this group without whom the whole thing falls apart, but Arouri was a particularly important person, both in terms of overall leadership and his support for violence,” said Matthew Levitt of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy think tank.
Even though this will elicit a response from them I don’t think they will fire an overly large barrage. 5-10 at a time every hour for a few hours will probably get the response they’re looking for. This wasn’t a Hezbollah member, but they need to save face after drawing the line in the sand - so they’ll launch something “easy” but serious enough to make it look like they’re doing something.
If they drop a residential building in Tel Aviv it would run the risk of an immediate and extreme escalation.
Yeah - any additional truly successful attacks against Israel at this point would likely just make Netanyahu tell the IDF “just kill them all idc”, and if it’s serious enough, might even put them in a mindset to use a low-yield nuke on something they want to go away for good (maybe something military, maybe a town, who knows).