The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) struck an important blow against Hamas, killing senior leader Saleh al-Arouri in a drone strike outside Beirut, Lebanon. Representative Mike Waltz (R-FL) appeared on Fox News's America Reports, calling the attack "a very big deal," because it demonstrated the resolve necessary to keep terrorists in check by ruthlessly hunting them down.
While certainly advantageous, Reuters reported that Mark Regev, an adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said Israel did not claim responsibility for the attack after Lebanon accused the Jewish State of trying to provoke a war. Additionally, the drone strike was "a surgical strike against the Hamas leadership," not an attack on Lebanon itself.
Al-Arouri was a key member of Hamas and considered a co-founder of the group's military wing. Additionally, he was linked to several terror attacks carried out by Hamas, including the 2014 kidnapping and murder of three Israeli civilians, and the Department of the Treasury named him a Specially Designated Global Terrorist in 2015.
Hence, Rep. Waltz called al-Arouri's death "a very big deal."
"This was the deputy commander. He was a specially designated terrorist by the United States with a $5 million bounty on his head, and if I were any Hamas leader right now, whether you are in Turkey, Beirut, or elsewhere, I would not sleep well at night. The Israelis will hunt them down," said Rep. Waltz, making a comparison to Operation Wrath of God, the decades-long campaign by Mossad to track and kill the perpetrators of the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre.
Waltz further added that Israel has "every right to do this, just as we had every right to hunt down the leadership of al-Qaeda after the 9/11 strikes."
Moreover, by relentless pursuit, he argued, "this is how you take down their capabilities."
"As long as they are worried about where they are going to sleep at night, they do not have time to plot and plan like this leader did in the run-up to October 7th. This is how you keep a lid on terrorism. You keep a boot on their neck," Waltz concluded.
In the case of Hamas, Waltz has also repeatedly argued that the United States must keep Iran, the group's sponsor, under "maximum pressure" so they cannot provide Hamas with money and weapons, lest Israel will be fighting the group forever.
