Baskin said: “If it’s true that Saleh al-Arouri has been killed, Hamas must be concerned. He is one of the most secretive people in the leadership and if Israel killed him they will eventually get to numbers two and one.”
He added: “They probably think that the movement will survive. None of them had illusions of living a long life.”
Speaking on Monday, Netanyahu vowed that Hamas’s leaders will be killed: “We are on the way to total victory.
“On the way to this victory, we already eliminated number four in Hamas. Three, two, and one are on the way.”
In February, Israel released CCTV footage of Hamas’ leader Yahya Sinwar as he walked through a tunnel in Khan Younis, Gaza.
Avichay Adraee, a spokesman for the Israel Defense Force, said at the time that Hamas’ leaders were living on “borrowed time.”
IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari also told the Al Arabiya network: “Every resident of Gaza [can now] see how Hamas leaders live underground and how they don’t think about anything other than themselves, their families and their money.
“One video or another is not what really matters. What is important is the intelligence that will allow us to reach senior Hamas officials and the hostages. The hunt for Sinwar will not stop until we catch him, dead or alive.”
