Hamas says its leader in Lebanon was killed in an Israeli airstrike

• Hamas says its top leader in Lebanon, Fateh Sherif Abu el-Amin, was killed in an Israeli airstrike.
• It said he was killed along with his wife and children in their home in the Al-Bas camp.
• Israel has been targeting Hezbollah in its strikes on Lebanon.

Hamas said its leader in Lebanon, Fateh Sherif Abu el-Amin, and several of his family members were killed in an Israeli airstrike in southern Lebanon.

The militant group made the statement on Monday on its Telegram channel, per NBC News .

It said el-Amin was killed alongside his wife and children "in their home in the (Al-Bas) camp."

In an X post on Monday, Israel Defense Forces said he was killed in a precision strike carried out by the Israel Air Force.

As the head of Hamas' Lebanon branch, el-Amin reportedly oversaw the organization's recruitment of operatives and arms acquisition efforts there.

His reported death comes after Israel said it killed longtime Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in an airstrike in Lebanon on Saturday.

It also claimed to have taken out Nabil Qaouk, the commander of Hezbollah's Preventative Security Unit and a member of the group's Executive Council, in a separate airstrike.

Israel has continued to strike targets in southern Lebanon and even in Beirut.

The latest developments are ones that could draw Iran more directly into the conflict, given its ties to the militant groups .

Iran is under pressure to respond to such attacks, but Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian also wants to ease tensions with the US and have economic sanctions on his country lifted.

A 2023 World Bank report, citing academic research, found that successive rounds of sanctions imposed on Iran over a decade had caused "notable" declines in Iran's GDP, with its per-capita GDP contracting by 0.6% a year.

Meanwhile, the IMF projects that Iran's GDP will grow by 3.3% in 2024, down from 4.7% in 2023, and said that inflation in the country has been above 36% since 2020.

In July, when Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated in Tehran just hours after he attended Pezeshkian's inauguration, with the finger being pointed at Israel, Iran vowed to retaliate but has not yet done so.

Since Nasrallah's killing on Saturday, several Iranian officials, as well as Hezbollah, have vowed to retaliate.

During a press conference on Monday, Nasser Kanaani, Iran's foreign ministry spokesperson, said Iran would not leave any of "the criminal acts" of Israel unanswered, per Reuters .

The Tasnim news agency quoted Elias Hazrati, head of the Iranian government information council, as saying : "We will show the defeat of Israel to the people of the world."

Meanwhile, Naim Qassem, Hezbollah's deputy chief, said that despite the deaths of its leader and other top commanders, the Lebanese armed group is ready to meet an Israeli ground offensive, per al-Jazeera .

In an X post on Monday, Israel's Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said forces stationed on Israel's northern border are ready and prepared to strike Hezbollah with force.

He added that Israel would use all the means at its disposal so residents could return to their homes in northern Israel.