Sheikh Saleh Al-Arouri was the Deputy Head of the Political Bureau of Hamas.
Hezbollah statement in response:
We consider the assassination of Sheikh Saleh Al-Arouri and his martyred companions in the heart of the southern suburb of Beirut a dangerous attack on Lebanon, its people, its security, its sovereignty, and its resistance. It carries deeply significant political and security messages and implications, and is a dangerous development in the course of the war between the enemy and the Axis of Resistance.
We in Hezbollah affirm that this crime will undoubtedly not go unanswered and unpunished. Our resistance remains firm, proud, and faithful to its principles and commitments that it has made to itself, ready with its hand on the trigger and its fighters at the highest level of readiness and preparedness.
If you've been paying attention to Israel's bombardment of Gaza, you know that Israel hasn't earned any significant military wins against the Palestinian resistance. It's honestly been humiliating for them, on top of the humiliation of Oct 7th. Israel has been overcompensating by obliterating Gazan lineages and planting Israeli flags into flattened blocks, but the IOF keeps getting beaten by the guerilla warfare of the resistance.
Now, likely in an attempt to achieve SOME kind of military win, Israel has allegedly bombed a top Hamas leader in Beirut. Beirut is the capital of Lebanon, located in central Lebanon. This is a MAJOR escalation, both territorially and also symbolically.
Note that the entire time Israel has been genociding Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, the zionist entity has also been bombarding southern Lebanon, killing civilians, journalists, and attacking medical centers there, to which Hezbollah has responded, but in a restrained fashion. That restraint will likely ebb considerably now.