Israeli troops on Tuesday destroyed the family home of Saleh al-Arouri, the exiled commander of Hamas forces, in the occupied West Bank as security forces continued their crackdown on leaders of the Islamist group.
Currently thought to be living in southern Lebanon, Arouri, the deputy to Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, is among a group of leaders singled out by Israeli officials who have vowed to destroy Hamas in retaliation for the deadly October 7 attack on southern Israel.
A video shared by the IDF on X, formerly known as Twitter, showed the white two-storey house in the village of Arora being levelled, with ash and dust flying out of windows and doors after demolitions were set off throughout the building.
The video also shows explosives experts from the IDF setting up in the middle of the night.
Several masked and armed soldiers can be seen unspooling detonation cord and sticking explosives into the walls of the empty house, which are covered in Arabic writing.
Ash and dust flew out of the home of Saleh al-Arouri, the exiled commander of Hamas forces as IDF forces demolished it
Saleh al-Arouri (pictured) is among a group of leaders singled out by Israeli officials as high-priority targets
al-Arouri’s house, which local residents said was not occupied, had been scheduled for demolition since last week and security forces blew it up in the early hours of the morning, according to witnesses.
A veteran Hamas leader who has spent 17 years in Israeli jails, Arouri rose to prominence in 2014 by admitting to the abduction and killing of three Israeli teenagers from a West Bank settlement.
Since then he has been behind a steady expansion of Hamas political cadres and gunmen throughout the West Bank, where the rival Fatah faction of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas controls the Palestinian Authority.
Following 18 months of steadily escalating violence in the West Bank, Israeli forces have clamped down further since the October 7 attack, making hundreds of arrests and conducting regular raids that have resulted in clashes.
At least 121 Palestinians have been killed there in the three weeks since the attack.
A Palestinian man from al-Badrasawi family carries the body of his child who was killed in Israeli strikes, at Shuhada Al-Aqsa hospital in the central Gaza Strip on Tuesday
Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers fire a 155 mm howitzer at an undisclosed location near the border with Gaza, southern Israel on Tuesday
Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers fire a 155 mm howitzer at an undisclosed location near the border with Gaza, southern Israel on Tuesday
On Tuesday, a 14-year-old boy hit during a confrontation near the northern West Bank city of Nablus died of his wounds and in a separate incident, a 70 year-old man was killed during a clash in the city of Tubas.
Over in Gaza, the Hamas-run Health Ministry said on Tuesday it registered the deaths of at least 219 people in the past day, bringing the death toll to 8,525 since the war began.
Spokesperson Ashraf al-Qidra said in a televised news conference that the fatalities include 3,542 children and 2,187 women.
He said the main power generator in the Indonesian Hospital in Beit Lahia, north of Gaza, has stopped working due to a lack of fuel.
He warned that more hospitals could go out of service in the coming days if fuel isn’t allowed into the besieged territory.
A Palestinian man wounded in Israeli strikes holds a body of a child killed in the strikes, at Shuhada Al-Aqsa hospital in the central Gaza Strip on Tuesday
Palestinians look for survivors after an Israeli strike in Rafah, Gaza Strip, on Tuesday
Pictured: Israeli soldiers amid their ground offensive in Gaza
Injured relatives of the Palestinians, who lost their lives after Israeli attacks, mourn as the bodies are carried for burial from Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Gaza on Tuesday
The warning came as Israel said its forces battled Hamas gunmen inside the terrorists’ vast tunnel network beneath Gaza and struck 300 targets overnight after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu categorically ruled out a ceasefire to ease the humanitarian crisis.
The tunnels are a key objective for Israel as it expands ground operations inside Gaza to wipe out Hamas following its gun rampage three weeks ago that killed over 1,400 people.
In the fourth night of major ground operations inside northern Gaza, the army said it hit around 300 targets including missile and rocket launch posts and ‘military compounds inside underground tunnels’ belonging to Hamas terrorists.
In response, Hamas gunmen attacked Israeli forces with machine gun fire and anti-tank missiles. ‘The soldiers killed terrorists and directed air forces to real-time strikes on targets and terror infrastructure,’ the IDF said.
The fighting came after Netanyahu on Monday evening slapped aside a call from 120 countries for a sustained humanitarian truce, saying such a ceasefire would be ‘surrendering’ to Hamas.
‘This will not happen,’ the premier said, vowing Israel would ‘fight until this battle is won’. ‘Calls for a ceasefire are calls for Israel to surrender to Hamas,’ he said.
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