Saleh al-Aruri was among the senior most figures in Hamas leadership hierarchy. He led the terrorist group on both political and military fronts. Aruri was crucial in the establishment of the terror group’s military wing, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades.
2023 Israel-Hamas War: Full Coverage
The 57-year-old leader was killed on Tuesday night during an alleged Israeli drone strike in the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs of Beirut’s Dahiyeh along with six others who are also believed to be Hamas members. Israel has not claimed responsibility for his death.
Saleh Al-Aruri was a US-designated global terrorist and they also issued a $5 million reward for information that would lead to his arrest. Following Hamas’ October 7 attacks on Israel, he assumed the role of Hamas spokesperson and told news outlet Al Jazeera that Hamas will not discuss an exchange deal for the hostages the group is holding before the war ends in Gaza.
Saleh al-Aruri was living in exile in Lebanon and spent 15 years in an Israeli jail. He contributed to the Israel-Palestine conflict politically when he acted as a negotiator in a deal which led to the release of more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in return for the freeing of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in 2011.
He has been on Israel’s hit-list for a long time and was known for having close ties to the Iranian government and the Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon.
He, however, rose to prominence in 2014 when he told reporters in Turkey that Hamas was responsible for the abduction and killing of three Israeli teenagers from a West Bank settlement.
Israel and the US believed that al-Aruri played a major role in training Hamas terrorists and funding them for the October 7 attacks on Israel that killed over 1,100 and saw over 250 people taken hostage, of which at least 110 have been released.
Israel in retaliation for the attacks have launched a siege on Gaza Strip, pummeling the narrow coastal strip with airstrikes and missile strikes, killing over 22,000 people, two-thirds of whom are women and children.
Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened to eliminate him ahead of the October 7 attacks and the Israeli government razed his West Bank home in October following orders from head of the Israel Defense Force Central Command Yehuda Fox.
Wider War
The killing of Saleh al-Aruri will lead to an anxious wait to see how Hezbollah responds. Hezbollah has blamed Israel for dragging Lebanon into the Gaza war by accusing it of conducting the drone strike which killed Aruri on Lebanese soil.
“We, Hezbollah, affirm that this crime will not go unanswered or unpunished, (it is) serious assault on Lebanon, its people, its security and sovereignty… and a dangerous development in the course of the war," the terrorist group which is highly influential in Lebanon said.
The killing will also anger Iran who observed the fourth death anniversary of its top general, Qasem Soleimani, who was killed in a US drone strike near Baghdad International Airport on January 3, 2020. It follows the death of Razi Moussavi, a senior commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ foreign operations arm, the Quds Force, near the Syrian capital Damascus who Iran claims was killed in an Israeli missile strike.
Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said the act of killing the Hamas deputy leader on Israeli soil was a new war crime and was aimed at dragging the nation into the Gaza war.
French President Emmanuel Macron called on Israel to avoid escalation, “particularly in Lebanon" when he spoke to Israeli minister and war cabinet member Benny Gantz.
“(It is) essential to avoid any escalatory attitude, particularly in Lebanon, and that France would continue to pass on these messages to all players directly or indirectly involved in the area", the presidency said.
(with inputs from BBC, Arab News and Al Jazeera)
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