Saleh al-Arouri: Hamas deputy leader Saleh al-Arouri has been killed in an Israeli drone strike in Beirut.

Israel Defense Forces (IDF) claimed that it has neutralized the deputy leader of Hamas. The terrorist organisation Hamas has also confirmed that Israel killed its deputy commander, Saleh al-Arouri, in Lebanon last night.

Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister, Najib Mikati, condemned the killing of Saleh al-Arouri. Al-Arouri, 57, a resident of Lebanon, served as the political bureau’s deputy director for the terror group and was regarded as the de facto head of Hamas’s military branch in the West Bank.

He was freed from Israeli prisons in March 2010 as part of negotiations to secure a bigger prisoner swap for Gilad Shalit, an IDF soldier who was abducted by Hamas in 2006. Later, Arouri was instrumental in negotiating Shalit’s 2011 release in exchange for the release of over 1,000 Palestinian detainees from Israeli prisons.