THOUSANDS of people attended the funeral of top Hamas commander Saleh Arouri today in the Lebanese capital Beirut after he was killed in an apparent Israeli strike.

Palestinian officials, including top Hamas official Moussa Abu Marzouk, as well as representatives of some Lebanese political groups attended the funeral.

Hamas top leader Ismail Haniyeh said in a speech aired during the funeral that Mr Arouri’s killing in Beirut “is proof of [Israel’s] bloody mindset.”

The killing adds to tensions in the Middle East with Israel’s ongoing ground offensive in Gaza, daily exchange of fire between Israeli troops and Lebanon’s Hezbollah fighters, and Yemen’s Houthi movement attacking targeting ships passing through the Red Sea.

On Wednesday, Israeli air strikes on southern Lebanon killed nine Hezbollah members, including a local commander.

In a speech Wednesday evening, Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah promised revenge, repeating his group’s statement that “this dangerous crime” of Mr Arouri’s killing will not go “without response and without punishment.”

Mr Nasrallah said Hezbollah had so far been careful in its strategic calculus in the conflict, balancing “the need to support Gaza and to take into account Lebanese national interests.”

But if the Israelis launch a war on Lebanon, the group is ready for a “fight without limits.”

“They will regret it,” he said. “It will be very, very, very costly.”

David Barnea, chief of Israel’s Mossad intelligence service, said on Wednesday that the agency would hunt down every Hamas member involved in the October 7 attack.

Israel has refused to comment on reports it carried out the killing, but the remarks appeared to be the strongest indication yet that it was behind the blast.

An anonymous United States official confirmed that the Israeli military carried out the strike that killed Mr Arouri and did not give the White House advance notice.

In Gaza today, an Israeli air strike in Khan Younis’s al-Mawasi killed nine children and five others, according to the Health Ministry.

The strip of land was designated as a safe zone by Israel last year.

One man who was asleep in a camp of tents when the blast occurred said he later found a body that “flew 40 metres away” as a result of the explosion.

“Where is the humanity?” Jamal Hamad Salah said to Reuters.

Mahmoud Saleh, the uncle of one of those killed in the attack, questioned why international law is not being upheld.

“They killed children,” he said.

“Children — they are getting shelled as they are sleeping, they are bombing them, killing them.”

And Bahaa Abu Hatab, whose brother died in the blast, said that nowhere in Gaza is safe.

“Wherever you go, there are strikes,” he told the news agency. “In the country, next to the camps, in al-Mawasi. There is no safe space.”

Israel’s air, ground and sea assault in Gaza has killed 22,438 people, two-thirds of them women and children.