MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Demonstrators took to the streets of the West Bank city of Ramallah today to protest the killing of a top Hamas official in Beirut Tuesday night. Lebanese state-run media said an Israeli drone carried out the blast, killing a Hamas deputy political leader. Israel denies responsibility. But today, the head of Israel's intelligence service, the Mossad, said the agency would hunt down every Hamas member involved in the October 7 attack, which killed about 1,200 people in southern Israel. NPR's Carrie Kahn reports.
CARRIE KAHN, BYLINE: Protesters took over the streets in downtown Ramallah, chanting praise for Saleh al-Arouri, who died in the Tuesday night bombing in the Lebanese capital.
(SOUNDBITE OF PROTEST)
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: (Chanting in Arabic).
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTER: (Chanting in Arabic).
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: (Chanting in Arabic).
KAHN: Marchers passed shuttered offices and stores, closed as part of a general strike. Hayat Rimawi said Arouri's death angered her and asked, how can Israel justify killing someone in another country?
HAYAT RIMAWI: Which is forbidden in all the world - you know? - to kill anybody in another region, another country? Israel is doing everything which is against the law.
KAHN: Rimawi, an elementary school English teacher, says Arouri was well known in the West Bank, where he was from.
RIMAWI: But now he is more - famous more than he was.
(SOUNDBITE OF PROTEST)
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: (Chanting in Arabic).
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTER: (Chanting in Arabic).
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: (Chanting in Arabic).
KAHN: Marchers called on all militant groups to unite with Hamas, including the Iranian-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen. Shawan Jabarin, a human rights leader, says more killings will not end this conflict.
SHAWAN JABARIN: Ending things - you have to act according law. Ending things - you have to act according international justice values and standards. That's the case.
KAHN: He says, without justice for Palestinians, peace will not be achieved.
Carrie Kahn, NPR News, Ramallah. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
