EDITORIAL: ‘No one is safe if they had any hand in’ Oct. 7

For eight years, the U.S. State Department has offered a reward of up to $5 million for information on the whereabouts of Saleh Arouri, a Hamas terrorist whose hands were dripping red.

This week, Israel found him.

Mr. Arouri was killed on Tuesday with two other Hamas military leaders in an explosion outside of Beirut in Lebanon. Israeli officials wouldn’t comment on the development, but The New York Times reported that U.S. and other sources “ascribed the attack” to the Jewish state.

“No one is safe if they had any hand in planning, raising money for or carrying out” the Oct. 7 attacks, an unnamed U.S. official told the Times. “This is just the beginning, and it’ll go on for years.”

It’s important to note that Mr. Arouri had a bloody resume. The State Department said that he had been “linked to several terrorist attacks, hijackings and kidnappings.” One such crime was the 2014 abduction and murder of three Israeli teenagers in the West Bank, including one who was also an American citizen.

Mr. Arouri was involved in coordinating cooperation between Iran and its terror proxy Hezbollah.

“Mr. Arouri worked with Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’ chief in Gaza, in recent years to link the group’s military wing more closely to Iran, which, regional security officials say, most likely helped the group develop some of the capabilities it used in the Oct. 7 attack,” The Times reports.

In other words, he was knee deep in carrying out a barbaric military operation against Israeli civilians that left more than 1,200 innocents dead and led to the kidnapping of more than 200 men, women and children whom Hamas would use as bargaining chips. He helped plan a gruesome assault that singled out women for sexual violence, mutilation and torture and was “systemic and unprecedented in its cruelty,” as one Israeli witness described it.

Israeli forces went on high alert after the death of Mr. Arouri in anticipation that Hezbollah might retaliate. Critics of Israel maintain that the attack will escalate the violence, but Hezbollah has been shelling northern Israel with missiles from Lebanon since the Oct. 7 massacre. Who is escalating what? These are the same critics who turn a blind eye to Hamas hiding military targets among civilian populations.

It’s just as likely that Israel’s targeted operation sends a message of steely resolve to those who wish to destroy the Jewish state. Israel has made clear that it won’t be cowed into a cease-fire that allows its enemies to rearm and recuperate in order to terrorize innocents once again. Mr. Arouri ran but he couldn’t hide. They that sow the wind shall reap the whirlwind.