Hamas leader killed in Beirut strike was on Israel’s hit list for years: Report
Saleh Arouri, the deputy political head of Hamas and a founder of the group’s military wing, had been in Israel’s sights for years before he was killed in a drone strike in a southern suburb of Beirut on Tuesday.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had threatened to kill him even before Hamas carried out its deadly surprise attack on Israel on October 7, sparking the ongoing brutal war in Gaza.
Israel had accused Arouri, 57, of masterminding attacks against it in the West Bank, where he was the group’s top commander. In 2015, the US Department of the Treasury designated Arouri as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist, offering $5 million for information about him.
Asked about assassination threats against him in an interview with Beirut-based Al-Mayadeen in August, Arouri said, “It is not strange for us for the commanders and cadres of the movement to be martyred.”
“I never expected to reach this age, so I am living on borrowed time,” he said.
In the same interview, he threatened that in case of a comprehensive war, “Israel will suffer a defeat unprecedented in history.”
Born in the town of Aroura in the occupied West Bank, Arouri joined Hamas and eventually went into exile, first to Damascus, where the Syrian government was a strong supporter of the group. But he left in 2011 when Hamas split with President Bashar Assad, siding with the opposition in Syria’s civil war.
