Saleh al-Arouri: assassinated leader was Hamas’s link to Iran and Hezbollah

[CharlieH]

 

The killing of Saleh al-Arouri in Beirut is the first strike in a campaign of assassinations overseas promised by Israeli officials for several months.

The target was carefully chosen – one of the most senior Hamas leaders and the organisation’s main link to Iran and the Lebanon-based militia Hezbollah. Arouri was also influential in the occupied West Bank, where he was born and where violence has soared in recent months.

 

Some Israeli officials also believe that the 57-year-old may have known in advance about the plan to launch bloody attacks into Israel before the assault on 7 October, which killed more than 1,200 Israelis, mainly civilians.

Arouri became involved in Islamist activism when a student at Hebron university in the mid-1980s, a time when such ideologies were surging across the Middle East. He joined Hamas soon after its foundation in the immediate aftermath of the first intifada and helped create Hamas’s military wing, the Izz al-Din al-Qassem brigades.

Jailed by Israel in 1992, Arouri spent almost all the next 18 years in prison. In 2010, he helped negotiate the release by Israel of more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in return for a single kidnapped Israeli soldier.

Based first in Syria, then in Qatar and finally in Lebanon, Arouri built a reputation as an astute operator with contacts throughout the Middle East but particularly with Iran. He also extended Hamas networks and influence in the West Bank and negotiated with Fatah, the veteran secular party that dominates the Palestinian Authority.

Political promotion followed. Already a member of Hamas’s powerful “politburo”, Arouri was elected deputy to Ismail Haniyeh, the organisation’s leader, in 2017. Since then, he has been a high-profile emissary for the group, involved in almost all major political decisions, and a key spokesperson.

 

FULL STORY

 

[Morch]

A good result.

And I don't think the other Hamas chiefs really mourn much, he wasn't well-liked, and even a threat as some of them go.

 

Here's another review of the man and the assassination:

 

Hamas deputy leader Saleh al-Arouri killed in alleged Israeli strike in Beirut

https://www.timesofisrael.com/hamas-deputy-leader-saleh-al-arouri-killed-in-alleged-israeli-strike-in-beirut-suburb/

 

Remains to be seen if (and how) Hezbollah will retaliate (as per past promises to do so if such actions are taken).