Who is Saleh al-Arouri, the senior Hamas leader killed in Beirut?
Saleh al-Arouri, the deputy Hamas leader who the group said was assassinated in a suburb of Beirut on Tuesday, was accused of masterminding attacks on Israel and had helped usher in a closer relationship between Hamas and Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militia in Lebanon.
The chief of Hamas’s West Bank operations, Mr. al-Arouri was killed in an explosion that also killed two leaders of its armed wing, Hamas said, blaming a “Zionist raid.”
In recent years, Mr. al-Arouri spent much of his time in Beirut, where he served as a sort of Hamas ambassador to Hezbollah, according to regional security officials. He was also regarded as being close to Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader in Gaza.
In 2014, Israel accused Mr. al-Arouri, then a Hamas commander, of planning the kidnapping and killing of three Israeli teenagers in the West Bank. Mr. al-Arouri called the act “a heroic operation by the Qassam Brigades,” referring to Hamas’s military wing.
That year, Israel also accused Mr. al-Arouri, who was in exile in Turkey at the time, of plotting to overthrow Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, which governs parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Mr. al-Arouri was elected in 2017 as deputy chairman of Hamas’s political bureau, accelerating what analysts and Israel officials have contended was a growing relationship between Hamas and Hezbollah. A few days after his election, he visited Tehran to strengthen ties with Iran, and publicly met soon after to discuss collaboration with the head of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, according to Palestinian news reports from the time.
The U.S. State Department has for years offered up to $5 million for information on Mr. al-Arouri’s whereabouts.
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