Israeli drone kills Hamas deputy leader in Beirut

Israel killed Hamas deputy leader Saleh al-Arouri in a drone strike in Lebanon's capital Beirut on Tuesday, Lebanese and Palestinian security sources said, as its tanks and warplanes pummelled Gaza in further "high-intensity" warfare against the Islamist militant group in the enclave.

Arouri, 57, was the first senior Hamas political leader to be assassinated since Israel launched a shattering air and ground offensive against Gaza's Hamas rulers almost three months ago after a shock Hamas militant rampage into Israeli towns.

His killing could heighten the risk of the Israel-Hamas war spreading well beyond the Gaza Strip. Lebanon's heavily armed Hezbollah group, a Hamas ally, has been exchanging near-daily fire with Israel across Lebanon's southern border since the war in Gaza began.

Hamas radio and TV and Lebanon's pro-Iranian Mayadeen TV confirmed word from security sources that Arouri, a member of the Palestinian Islamist movement's politburo based abroad and a co-founder of Hamas' military wing, the Izz-el-Deen al-Qassam Brigades, had been killed when a drone struck a Hamas office in south Beirut.

In all, the drone attack killed six people in the city's southern suburb of Dahiyeh, a Hezbollah redoubt, the Lebanese state news agency said. Two security sources said the drone targeted a meeting and Hamas' Al Aqsa TV said commanders of the group's armed wing in Lebanon - Samir Findi Abu Amer and Azzam Al-Aqraa Abu Ammar - were among the dead.

Asked to confirm that Israel was behind Arouri's slaying, Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari told a media briefing: "We are focused on killing Hamas."