A crowd gathered in Beirut on Jan. 4, 2024 during the funeral of Saleh al-Arouri, deputy political leader of Hamas killed in the southern suburbs of the capital on Jan. 2. (Credit: Mohammad Yassine/L'Orient Today)
More than a thousand people gathered in Beirut on Thursday for the funeral of Hamas deputy political leader Saleh al-Arouri and two of his associates, who were killed in a strike, attributed to Israel, on the capital's southern suburbs Tuesday evening.
Calls for retaliation echoed as the procession moved through the city. Six other senior figures from the Palestinian movement and the Lebanese militant group, Jamaa Islamiya, also lost their lives in the strike that targeted a Hamas office in Hezbollah's stronghold of southern Beirut. Reportedly a meeting between the Palestinian factions was underway at the time of the attack. Witnesses described two explosions, one directly hitting the second floor of a building in the packed residential neighborhood and a second hitting a car parked outside.
The coffin of Saleh al-Arouri wrapped in the Hamas flag. (Credit: Mohammad Yassine/L'Orient Today)
The coffins of Saleh al-Arouri; Azzam al-Aqraa, a leader from the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas; and official Mohammad al-Rais were draped in Palestinian and Hamas flags. A machine gun was placed atop Arouri's coffin, as captured by our photographer Mohammad Yassine.
Pallbearers wearing Hamas caps carried the coffins through packed streets. The funeral prayer was held at the Imam Ali mosque in the Tariq al-Jdideh neighborhood of Beirut. Amid a barrage of gunfire, the funeral procession headed to the Palestinian refugee camp of Shatila, where the three men were laid to rest.
"Abu Obeida, bomb Tel Aviv"
Mourners chanting "Allah Akbar" (God is greatest), waved the green flag of Hamas, along with Palestinian and Palestinian Islamic Jihad flags. Repeated calls of "Abu Obeida, bomb Tel Aviv" were directed at the spokesperson for Hamas' military wing in Gaza, known for his public appearances masked with the emblematic keffieh.
An attendee, Abdel Majid Awad, told L'Orient Today that "The commander and his companions were cowardly murdered by the Zionist enemy, which does not respect state sovereignty and poses a danger to all Arab and Muslim nations. Thus, eradicating this entity is a matter of national interest." He added, "Resistance against the Israeli state will strengthen and deepen following Saleh al-Arouri's assassination, just as after the killing of Sheikh Ahmed Yassine [March 22, 2004, in Gaza]. We will continue the 'Operation al-Aqsa Flood' until our goals are achieved, and we shall emerge victorious, God willing."
Omar Ghannoum, a 35-year-old Palestinian, told AFP that with "the killing of Saleh al-Arouri or any other Palestinian ... the resistance will create new leaders." He said he attended the funeral to "denounce the ongoing genocide in Gaza and the violation of Lebanese sovereignty by the Israeli army."
Several exiled Hamas officials reside in Lebanon under the protection of Hezbollah, an ally of the group and co-member of the 'Axis of Resistance' in the region. Israel has vowed to "destroy" Hamas after the Oct. 7 attack by the group on Israeli soil, which resulted in approximately 1,140 deaths in Israel, according to Israeli officials. The ongoing Gaza war, carried out in retaliation, has claimed over 22,000 lives, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
Since the war in Gaza began, and until Tuesday, daily clashes between Hezbollah and its allies against Israel had been confined to southern Lebanon. The Tuesday night strike was the first attack close to the Lebanese capital since Oct. 7. Israel has neither claimed nor denied responsibility for the strike. But, Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Lebanese government immediately pointed fingers to Israel. In early December, 2022, the Wall Street Journal reported that the Israeli spy agency, Mossad, had received orders from Prime Minister Netanyahu to hunt down Hamas officials abroad. A US defense official confirmed on Wednesday that it was indeed an "Israeli strike," as reported by the Washington Post.
In a speech on Wednesday night, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah warned Israel that if it waged war against Lebanon, the armed party's response "will be limitless."
A machine gun is placed on the coffin of Saleh al-Arouri during the funeral of the deputy political leader of Hamas, Jan. 4, 2024. (Credit: Mohammad Yassine/L'Orient Today)
This article was originally published in French on L'Orient-le Jour. English translation by Amelia Hankins.