Saleh, who is responsible for Hamas recruitment in the occupied West Bank, was “injured to an unknown extent” in the attack, the Israeli official said. He worked alongside Azzam al-Akra, a senior member of Hamas’s armed wing, who was killed in a suspected Israeli strike in Beirut in early January, according to the official.
The attack on Saturday came as Iran’s foreign minister visited Beirut, meeting with top Lebanese officials and Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah. Tehran is a key ally and backer of Hezbollah, which has been engaged in low-level conflict with Israel since the war in Gaza started on Oct. 7.
Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian warned Israel against launching a broader war in Lebanon. “Iran is against any expansion of the scope of war,” he said at a joint news conference with his Lebanese counterpart.
As Israel traded cross-border fire with Hezbollah, it also ramped up strikes in Rafah in southern Gaza, killing dozens in overnight attacks that many there fear are a prelude to a deadlier Israeli ground offensive.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Friday that a “massive operation” was needed in Rafah to eradicate Hamas. He said he ordered the Israel Defense Forces to draw up a plan to remove the civilian population from the area, where more than 1 million people are now sheltering after fleeing Israeli bombardment elsewhere in Gaza, according to the United Nations.
Rights group Amnesty International said that if the removal order is enacted, it “may amount to the crime of forcible transfer.” U.N. and other humanitarian officials warn that Palestinians crammed into Rafah have nowhere else to go.
“Forcing the over 1 million displaced Palestinians in Rafah to again evacuate without a safe place to go would be unlawful and would have catastrophic consequences,” said Nadia Hardman, refugee and migrant rights researcher at Human Rights Watch.
If people are forced to flee north, where there is widespread destruction, they will end up returning “to devastated areas that are littered with dangerous explosive devices and are virtually uninhabitable,” Tjada D’Oyen McKenna, chief executive officer of the aid group Mercy Corps, said in a statement.
Aid agencies are already struggling to address the sprawling humanitarian crisis in Gaza, which is now seeing “concerning rates of acute malnutrition” among children, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
Israel has also taken aim at the main U.N. organization providing services in Gaza, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), which it says is open to exploitation by Hamas.
On Saturday, the Israeli military said it had uncovered a tunnel that passes beneath UNRWA’s main headquarters in Gaza City and was used by Hamas. The military showed journalists from the Associated Press and other outlets what it said was an electrical supply hub powering tunnel infrastructure in the area.
Hamas, which seized control of Gaza in 2007, maintained a vast network of tunnels in the territory, which it used to store and smuggle weapons and shield senior leaders during conflicts with Israel.
UNRWA’s commissioner-general, Philippe Lazzarini, said Saturday in a statement that his agency was not aware of any tunnel infrastructure under the compound, which staff evacuated on Oct. 12, and that Israel had not formally notified UNRWA about the discovery. The agency, he said, inspects the grounds every quarter, “but does not have the military and security expertise nor the capacity to undertake military inspections of what is or might be under its premises.”
Last month, Israel accused about a dozen UNRWA employees of playing a role in the Hamas attacks on Oct. 7 and shared some of its findings with the United States and other foreign governments that help fund the agency. The allegations prompted multiple countries, including the United States, to suspend funding, plunging the organization into crisis.
Here’s what else to know
The body of Hind Rajab, the 6-year-old missing for 12 days since losing touch with rescue workers after her family car was fired on in Gaza, was found, the Palestine Red Crescent Society said Saturday. The ambulance dispatched to reach her was also shelled and the two paramedics inside were killed. Hind, the sole survivor of the attack in Gaza City, reached emergency dispatchers by phone on Jan. 29 and begged for hours to be rescued.
Moody’s downgraded Israel’s credit rating Friday and changed its outlook for the country to negative, citing the war with Hamas and reflecting the ratings agency’s concern that the conflict could become a long-term economic burden. Moody’s downgraded Israel’s rating from A1 to A2, which is still in a category it considers “low credit risk.”
CIA Director William J. Burns is expected to travel to Cairo on Tuesday to continue negotiations over the proposed hostage release deal, with U.S. officials hoping Israel will respond to Hamas’s latest proposal, according to a senior administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive talks. The official said that Hamas’s proposal, which it delivered to negotiators earlier this week, has “real problems” but that the administration believes there is a broad enough framework in place to facilitate an agreement.
At least 28,064 people have been killed and 67,611 injured in Gaza since the war began, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Israel estimates that about 1,200 people were killed in Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack.
Ables reported from Seoul, Harb and Bisset from London, and Brown from Washington. Yasmeen Abutaleb in Washington, Frances Vinall in Melbourne and Lior Soroka in Tel Aviv contributed to this report.
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