On Tuesday, Hamas number two Saleh al-Arouri was killed in a strike near Beirut, Lebanon. If Israel did not claim responsibility for the assassination, the Jewish state had sworn to “destroy” Hamas after the bloody attacks of October 7 and the attack on a fighter plane – according to a Lebanese official – is, done, attributed. Important link with Iran but also the Lebanese Hezbollah, Saleh al-Arouri was an essential member of Hamas. But who was he and what role did he play within the political and military group?
Where did Saleh al-Arouri come from?
Married and father of two daughters, Saleh al-Arouri was 57 years old. Born in the village of Aroura, near Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, he had a great influence in the establishment of Hamas in this region where the latter is rather discreet. “He controlled all the Hamas cells in the West Bank, it is thanks to him that the movement developed in this territory,” explains Marie Kortam, associate researcher at the French Institute of the Middle East, who predicts “retaliations » against Jewish settlers. In his native village, many Palestinians offered their condolences to members of his family on Wednesday.
At the end of October, the Israeli army carried out a raid in Aroura to destroy his house with explosives, because the fifty-year-old was “one of the masterminds who thought up the October 7 attacks”, underlines the researcher. A symbolic destruction since Saleh al-Arouri had not set foot on his native land for more than thirteen years. However, he enjoyed very strong influence in the region, in particular because he formed the first Ezzedine al-Qassam brigades in the region, which constitute the armed wing of Hamas. Saleh al-Arouri studied Islamic studies at Hebron University and joined the Muslim Brotherhood at a young age. Then, he became a member of Hamas from its founding in 1987.
What relationship did he have with Israeli justice?
“Saleh al-Arouri spent twenty years in prison,” recalls Marie Kortam. Detained several times in the early 1990s, he finally received a 15-year prison sentence in 1992 for having formed the first cells of the Ezzedine al-Qassam brigades in the occupied West Bank. In 2007, he was released for only three months and then imprisoned again until 2010. “During those years, he made many friends, members of the al-Qassam brigades,” says the researcher associated with the French Institute of the Middle East. In 2010, “he was removed by Israel,” she recalls. Saleh al-Arouri then went into exile in exchange for freedom, first in Turkey then in Lebanon, again on an “Israeli decision”, specifies Marie Kortam.
What role did he play within Hamas?
In 2010, Saleh al-Arouri was appointed to the political branch of Hamas. He was also one of the negotiators who obtained an exchange of 1,027 Palestinian prisoners for an Israeli soldier in 2011. Head of the Ezzedine al-Qassam brigades in the West Bank, he was elected to the position of number two in the political branch of Hamas in October 2017.
Above all, Saleh al-Arouri “had very many contacts”, recalls Marie Kortam. “He was truly loved by Palestinians, Iranians, Lebanese and even Syrians. He was the only member of Hamas to still be welcome in Syria since the revolution,” lists the researcher.
Why is this a “great loss” for Hamas?
Beyond his multiple contacts, Saleh al-Arouri “represented a Palestinian and activist figure who unites and brings together,” notes Marie Kortam. He called for reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah,” the Palestinian nationalist political party of which President Mahmoud Abbas is a member. “He took a complementary approach, not a destructive one, and worked for Palestinian reconciliation, which is not common among Hamas figures. In this, he was a unifier and it is a great loss for Hamas,” she explains. “Credible” and enjoying real “leadership”, Saleh al-Arouri, in “Israel’s sights”, “was waiting for his assassination”, specifies the researcher. Just like his comrade Yahya Sinouar, the leader of Hamas in Gaza, designated by the Israeli army as a “death on borrowed time”.