Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) has condemned in the strongest terms the assassination of senior Hamas official Saleh al-Arouri in an Israeli drone strike on Lebanon, saying the targeted killing will further boost Palestinian fighters’ resolve to fight off the occupying regime.
In a statement released on Wednesday, the IRGC announced that the killing of Arouri along with six others, including two commanders of al-Qassam Brigades – the military wing of the Palestinian Hamas resistance movement, will embolden Palestinian combatants across the occupied territories, especially in the West Bank, to stand up to Israeli occupiers more determinedly.
The IRGC went on to emphasize that the bogus Israeli regime resorts to assassination and atrocities in order to compensate for the irreparable damage sustained in the aftermath of the October 7multi-pronged attack by Hamas and other Gaza-based resistance groups, dubbed Al-Aqsa Storm Operation, and to get out of the quagmire in Gaza.
It denounced the Israeli assassination drone strike as a violation of Lebanon’s sovereignty, stressing that the attack exposed that the malicious strategies of the US-backed Tel Aviv regime, pivot on insanity, viciousness and warmongering policies.
The IRGC added that Israel’s humiliating defeat in Al-Aqsa Storm Operation cannot be reversed through acts of terror and crimes, as the regime, already brought to its knees, is unable to disrupt the calculations of the resistance front.
“The strategic patience of the Axis of Resistance and Hezbollah won’t snap as desperately wished by the Zionist regime and its sponsors. The resistance force won’t distance itself from rationality and wisdom, and will focus on necessary tools in its struggle against occupiers of al-Quds and usurpers of Palestinian territories,” it stated.
The IRGC underscored that Arouri’s assassination gave fresh impetus to the resistance front, which has tightened the noose around Israel.
Arouri was killed on Tuesday in a “treacherous Zionist strike” on Beirut’s southern suburb of Dahiyeh, Hamas announced on its official channel.
Hamas politburo member Izzat al-Rishq described it as a “cowardly assassination.”
Arouri was a senior official in Hamas’s politburo, and known to be deeply involved in its military affairs. He had previously headed the group’s presence in the occupied West Bank.
The Israeli regime launched its devastating war on the Gaza Strip on October 7 after the territory’s Hamas-led Palestinian resistance groups carried out a surprise retaliatory attack, dubbed Operation Al-Aqsa Storm, against the occupying entity.
The Israeli military has also been carrying out attacks against the Lebanese territory since then, prompting retaliatory strikes from Lebanon’s resistance movement Hezbollah in support of the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip.
The movement has vowed to keep up its retaliatory operations as long as the regime continues its onslaught on Gaza.
The relentless Israeli military campaign against Gaza has killed at least 21,978 people, most of them women and children. Another 57,697 individuals have also been wounded.
