Hamas Deputy Chief Saleh al-Arouri was one of the most senior figures in the terrorist organization killed over the last decade. That he was high on Israel’s target list is not new – the man orchestrated horrific terrorist attacks on Israelis for years – including October 7. But the way it happened and its wider consequences are game-changing, and could tip the scales in any which way.
Israel has vowed to disable Hamas’s military capabilities in Gaza. After the blast in that Dahiyeh apartment, Hamas said in response that Arouri’s death legitimizes “all options” of retaliation. After witnessing October 7, one can only be left to wonder what that means.
Arouri traveled freely across the region – it is harder to take out a moving target – and presumably felt comfortable under Beirut’s protection, a Hezbollah stronghold. Israel wouldn’t risk so much when it is already fighting a fully-fledged war in the South, and is already engaged in a simmering conflict in the North.
The Hezbollah-affiliated Al-Akhbar newspaper reported on Thursday that Arouri received warnings from Hezbollah before he was killed, that “Israel is watching your every move.” This must be taken with a grain of salt, but it does hit the notes on the regional seam line that got ripped apart here on Tuesday night.
Israel’s messaging since Tuesday has been consistent: We remain ready for every development, any scenario – Jerusalem knows that the next move rests neither with Hamas nor Hezbollah, but with Iran.
The risks for Israel are clear, but the benefits seem a bit less, having iced any rumored hostage negotiations and increased tension in the North.
Opponents of the Gaza invasion have argued, from the beginning, that you can’t kill an ideology. When someone like Arouri is killed, it leaves a power vacuum, and leaves people wondering who will take their place; everything Arouri symbolized will not simply disappear into thin air.
Israel has not publicly taken responsibility for the strike and has turned down requests to acknowledge it, while the US quickly dismissed the notion that the Jewish state was involved.
A symbol of the Palestinian fight
Arouri was a symbol of the Palestinian fight; his hometown of ‘Arura, just north of Ramallah, was rife with anger and sadness when the news of his killing reached its residents on Tuesday. As far as this goes, from a geographic-regional perspective, the heart of it is right here at home, this tiny strip of land from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.
The killing is a significant development in the region. The vacuum of power left in his wake raises questions about responsibility and its implications for Israel, reshaping the calculations and dynamics in the region, and highlighting the complex and evolving nature of the conflict.
A former top defense chief told Post military correspondent Yonah Jeremy Bob on Wednesday that it is not entirely clear that Iran and its proxy group – Shi’ites – would risk the big fight with Israel over the death of a Sunni – Arouri. Dr. Raz Zimmt, an expert in Iranian affairs at the INSS, told Maariv on Thursday that the response, though it will be coordinated with Iran, will not effectively change the situation on the ground, that Nasrallah’s concern is as much to avoid an escalation as deliver a response.
Killing Arouri was, as storied journalist Nachum Barnea wrote in Yediot Aharonot, “a gamble” with the question of the relevance, timing, and significance of it being called into question, as well as few family members of hostages expressing frustration and hopelessness at the move, that it doesn’t help bring their loved ones home.
On the one hand, it was a strong, serious hit to a figure responsible for terrorism, and a message to Nasrallah, right in his home. On the other hand, this may have just shattered – or at the very least put stumbling blocks in front of – the diplomatic headway being made, and could shake up the North as well as the West Bank, possibly having crossed a redline for Nasrallah. It is unclear what the damage to that may be from this.
The Arouri Era has ended, but the fight is certainly still ongoing, only now the terms have changed. Israel needs to weigh its next moves as carefully as threading a needle.