The Israeli assassination on Tuesday night of a senior Hamas political leader in a drone strike on a building in Beirut's southern suburbs of Dhahiyeh has been described as a cowardly act. 

The assassination of Saleh al-Arouri has strongly highlighted the Israeli regime's frustration and desperation in its attempts to defeat Hamas in Gaza as well as its cowardice. 

In the very early hours of Tuesday evening, it sneaked a drone into Lebanese territory to commit the assassination. It could not kill any Hamas leaders man-to-man. 
Despite three months of waging all-out war on the enclave, the regime's leaders have failed to "eliminate Hamas". 

The main Israeli goal to "eliminate Hamas" in Gaza and declare victory (amid rising international pressure over its indiscriminate attacks on civilians) was to assassinate a senior Hamas political or military leader. 

After 90 days of waging war on Gaza, the regime's military has failed to kill any Hamas leaders in the enclave. 

Essentially, it has failed to present anything to its friends and foes and the wider international community of any signs of a victory. 

An assassination of any well-known member of Hamas was highly important for Israel to justify its mass slaughter of civilians in Gaza, as the regime has been repeatedly claiming that Hamas is using civilians as "human shields". 

The regime was desperate to show that Hamas leaders were hiding in hospitals or UN-run shelters to give grounds for its indiscriminate attacks against civilians. 

Yet, the Israeli military found no Hamas leaders in hospitals, shelters, or even tunnels to capture or assassinate. 

In a desperate search for an image of victory for itself, the regime assassinated al-Arouri in Lebanon. But this is not a victory. This is a violation of another country's sovereignty and territorial integrity. 

This is where the Israeli anger over its ongoing failure in Gaza has led to such a high level of frustration that it decided to assassinate a senior Hamas political leader in another country, in what has been described as a "cowardly act". 

Contrary to the calculations of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his ministers, the assassination of al-Arouri will not defeat Hamas or the Palestinian resistance factions in Gaza but strengthen them. 

The Palestinian resistance is already inflicting heavy damage to the Israeli ground forces in Gaza. 

If the Palestinian resistance needed a boost in morale in Gaza, the Israeli regime has just offered it one. 

Having failed to achieve its goals in the besieged enclave, and having been forced to withdraw units of its army, the Israeli regime has turned to committing an act of terrorism in another arena, far away from Gaza. 

This reflects the level of hysteria the regime's leaders are living through. 

The Israeli military has assassinated many Hamas leaders in the past. Whenever it did so, other Hamas officials with long-term ties to the group assumed the posts of those who were assassinated. 

History has shown that in occupied Palestine a movement whose leaders and founders are martyred will never be defeated. 

Izzat al-Rishq, a member of the Hamas political bureau, alluded to this by saying al-Arouri was killed in a "cowardly assassination by the Zionist entity", adding such attacks "will not succeed in breaking the will and steadfastness of our people, or undermining the continuation of their valiant resistance". 

He added that the attack "proves once again the abject failure of this enemy to achieve any of its aggressive goals in the Gaza Strip." 

Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh issued a strongly-worded statement via television, saying, "The Nazi-Zionist occupation bears responsibility for this aggression and will not succeed in breaking the will of resilience and the steadfast resistance of our people and its valiant resistance."
This is while Palestinian Islamic Jihad vowed revenge in a statement, warning that "this crime will not go unpunished and the resistance will continue until the occupation is removed." 
Hamas confirmed that at least six people?, including one of its senior officials, al-Arouri, as well as two leaders of its armed wing, Samir Abu Amer and Azzam Abu Ammar (believed to be his bodyguards), had been assassinated in the Israeli drone attack on the 88th day of its war on Gaza. 

But this is not Gaza. This is Lebanon, where Hezbollah is the most powerful military player. 

If the regime's leaders say they do not seek a wider escalation beyond Gaza and the occupied West Bank, they have again miscalculated their military strategy. 

Yemen's Ansarullah condemned the assassination and reaffirmed its support for the resistance movements in Palestine and Lebanon. Ansarullah is already waging a widely unexpected mission in the Red Sea in solidarity with the Palestinian resistance in Gaza that has alarmed the West. 

In Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank, large crowds took to the streets to urge retaliation, shouting, "Revenge, revenge, Qassam." 

In a televised speech in August, Hezbollah Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah warned the regime against carrying out any assassinations on Lebanese soil, vowing a "severe response". 

Following the assassination, Hezbollah has warned that its finger "is on the trigger" as it plans its response to the killing. 
Hezbollah issued a statement,  saying, "We consider the assassination of Saleh al-Arouri and his martyr companions in the heart of the southern suburbs of Beirut a serious attack on Lebanon, its people, security, sovereignty, resistance, and the profound political and security messages it carries, representing a dangerous development in the course of the war between the enemy and the Axis of Resistance." 

It emphasized, "This crime will never pass without a response and punishment," adding, "Our resistance is committed, steadfast, loyal to its principles and commitments, with its hand on the trigger, and its fighters in the highest state of readiness and preparedness." 

Saleh al-Arouri was a Palestinian political leader and a former military commander. He took the position of deputy head of the Hamas political bureau and contributed to the establishment of its military arm, al-Qassam Brigades, in the West Bank. 

Al-Arouri was born in 1966 and is from the village of Aroora, near Ramallah. He obtained a bachelor's degree from al-Khalil (Hebron) University in the occupied West Bank. 

In 1987, he joined the Hamas movement and has been a member of its political wing since 2010. He was arrested by the Israeli army in 1992 and sentenced to 15 years in prison for helping form the al-Qassam brigades. 

After being released in 2007, he was rearrested three months later and held for three years until 2010, when he was released and exiled to Syria. 

The 57-year-old settled in the Lebanese capital of Beirut, where he was assassinated after moving between several countries, including Turkey and Qatar. 

The Israeli regime was on a high level of alert, but now it is on an even higher level. But it doesn't know where this attack will originate or what time it will happen or start.

Culled from Tehran Times