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Saleh al-Arouri

Saleh al-Arouri (19 August 1966 – 2 January 2024) was the founding commander of Hamas' military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades.

Biography[]

Saleh al-Arouri was born in Aroura, West Bank in 1966, and he became a member of Hamas' youth wing at Hebron University, where he studied sharia law. al-Arouri cofounded the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas' military wing, and he was imprisoned from 1990 to 2005 and from 2007 to 2010. Arouri went into exile in Turkey before being expelled in 2015, after which he was shuttled between Lebanon and Qatar. Arouri oversaw the smuggling of weapons and the establishment of sleeper cells in the West Bank, and he masterminded several terrorist attacks against Israel. Based in Lebanon, he was one of the masterminds of the 2023 "al-Aqsa Flood" offensive into southern Israel. On 21 October, Israeli forces occupied his home in the West Bank and detained dozens of his family members and neighbors before demolishing his home on 31 October. He was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut's Dahieh neighborhood in 2024.

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