Saleh al-Arouri was a senior leader of Hamas and a founding commander of its military wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades. He served as the Deputy Chairman of Hamas’s political bureau since 2017, was considered as one of the group’s key political leaders. He was considered to be a main figure in Hamas’ financial network and in the ceasefire and hostage negotiations.
Since 2015 he had been sanctioned and placed on OFAC’s list of Specially Designated Global Terrorists, under the US State Department’s Executive Order 13224.
Accused by the US and Israel of financing and overseeing Hamas’s military operations in the West Bank, where he is originally from, Arouri has been on the US list of terrorists since 2015.
The US State Department was offering up to $5 million for “information leading to the identification or location” of Hamas’s number two, through its Rewards for Justice Program.
Arouri was imprisoned in Israel between 1995 and 2010, released and deported to Syria before he moved to Turkey and then banished and sent to Qatar in 2017. His final place of residence was Lebanon, from which he managed Hamas’s military operations in the West Bank, enabling military activities and arranging the procurement of funds.
Arouri went on to be involved in the deal that led to the release of more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails in return for an Israeli Army Corporal in 2011.
Arouri is believed to have been involved in the planning, kidnapping, and killing of three Israeli teenagers in the occupied West Bank in the summer of 2014. According to the US State Department, Arouri publicly celebrated their murders, labeling them as “heroic operations”.
It was reported by Hezbollah-operated Al-Manar TV channel that Arouri held a meeting with Hezbollah’s Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah and the head of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Ziyad al-Nakhalah, on October 25.
Israeli forces bombarded his family home in the West Bank on October 31, but local residents claimed it was unoccupied at the time.
The Israeli army arrested around 20 people on October 21, including Arouri’s brother and nine of his nephews, in the village of Arura near Ramallah.
Saleh al-Arouri was killed Tuesday in an Israeli strike in the Beirut’s Southern suburb on Tuesday.
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