Israel-Hamas conflict: who was Saleh al-Arouri, rising Hamas figure killed in Lebanon?

His death may be a turning point in the war between Israel and Hamas. However, he was neither the best known nor the most influential leader of the terrorist organization. Considered number two in the political bureau of the Islamist movement, Saleh al-Arouri was killed Tuesday afternoon in Beirut in an airstrike. This has never been claimed, but everything indicates the signature of Israel.

A founding member of the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, in the early 1990s, he is said to have played a major role in the development of the military capabilities of the Palestinian Islamist movement in recent years. More recently, he was the link between Hamas, Iran and Lebanese Hezbollah. The Jewish state considers that this 57-year-old terrorist leader was involved in numerous attacks, starting with that of October 7, which triggered the war that has been going on for almost three months in the Gaza Strip.

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It is in the West Bank, where he is considered the local leader of Hamas, that his unique journey begins. These are his family roots, in the village of Aroura, near Ramallah, where he was born in 1966. After studying Islamic studies at the University of Hebron, he joined the Muslim Brotherhood at a young age. From 1987, the date of the founding of Hamas by the leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood, he naturally became an active member.

Detained several times in the early 1990s, he was sentenced to fifteen years in prison for having formed the first cells of the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades in the West Bank. Released in 2007, he was imprisoned again three months later until 2010, when he was released on condition that he go into exile. Arouri was thus expelled to Syria, where he spent three years before settling in Lebanon. After his release in 2010, he was appointed to the political branch of Hamas and was part of the team of negotiators who obtained, with Egyptian mediators, the exchange in 2011 of 1,027 Palestinian prisoners for an Israeli soldier. Married and father of two daughters, Saleh al-Arouri lived in Beirut.

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On October 9, 2017, Hamas announced the election of Arouri to the position of number 2 of its political branch, led by Ismaïl Haniyeh. The latter lives in voluntary exile, dividing his time between Turkey and Qatar. Considered a pragmatist, Haniyeh has long advocated for reconciling armed resistance and political combat within the movement, classified as “terrorist” by the United States, the European Union and Israel.

The death of Saleh al-Arouri reinforces the threat that already hangs over the heads of other Hamas leaders. Like Mohammed Deïf for example, the head of the military branch and an almost legendary figure for the Palestinians. Presented as "the chief of staff of the resistance", the latter has been a target for Israel for many years and has escaped at least six known assassination attempts.

Same thing for Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas in Gaza and the main mastermind of the October 7 attack, with whom Arouri was in competition to take over from Ismaïl Haniyeh according to Amélie Férey, researcher in Political Science and International Relations at the French Institute of International Relations (IFRI). According to revelations from Le Figaro, Sinwar telephoned Arouri to warn him of Operation Al Aqsa Flood half an hour before it was launched. He would then have instructed him to warn the leader of Hezbollah, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah.

Why was it Arouri who was hit and not someone else? “All of them are on the Hamas blacklist,” recalls Sacha Belissa, from the terrorism analysis center. But for mainly diplomatic reasons, it is certainly easier to carry out this kind of operation in Lebanon than in Qatar, where Hhaniyeh is probably located today.