Saleh al-Arouri is all over Beirut.

Literally. He was blown apart on Tuesday evening, likely by an Israeli drone.

Al-Arouri is (sorry, was) a somebody, to put it mildly. A Hamas member from the beginning, the late-fiftysomething headed the group’s West Bank operations and was instrumental in the birth of the Al-Qassam Brigades, which carried out the October 7 attacks.

A regular in Israeli jails for long stretches spanning two decades, Al-Arouri eventually landed in Damascus, where he operated until the onset of Syria’s long-running civil war, which put Hamas at odds with the Assad regime. After several years in Istanbul, he made his way to Beirut. In 2017, he was named deputy chairman of Hamas’s political wing, a development that likely facilitated the group’s inter-sectarian rapport with Hezbollah. Indeed, Al-Arouri was Hamas’s de facto envoy to Hezbollah.

On Tuesday, he was hanging out with some friends in Dahiyeh, a Beirut suburb and a Hezbollah stronghold where Hamas keeps an office, when the IDF closed his curtain. Five others, including two lower-ranking al-Qassam leaders, were also killed in the blast.

Benjamin Netanyahu has long sought Al-Arouri’s head, and while it’s probably detached now, it’s presumably unrecoverable as a trophy. Netanyahu will have to be satisfied with visuals of a gaping, fiery hole in the side of a high rise where Al-Arouri and pals were — I don’t know — playing Jenga and gossiping about co-workers over wine spritzers maybe. “Limbs and other pieces of flesh could be seen on the roadside,” Reuters wrote, describing the scene.

Hamas confirmed Al-Arouri’s death, calling the operation “cowardly” and a “Zionist raid.” Iran dubbed it an “assassination” and a “violation of Lebanon’s sovereignty.” It was both, but no one should shed a tear for Al-Arouri, even as we shed plenty for Gaza. He embodied the term “legitimate target.”

One key question now is how Hassan Nasrallah reacts to a high-profile assassination on his turf. This could easily exacerbate tensions on the Lebanon border. Hezbollah’s guaranteed (duty bound, even) to respond.

A senior US official confirmed to the Washington Post that the IDF was behind the strike. Netanyahu adviser Mark Regev wouldn’t confirm Israel’s role. “Whoever did it, it must be clear — this was not an attack on the Lebanese state,” he said.