A drone strike in the southern Beirut neighborhood of Dahiyeh this week killed several Hamas leaders, including Saleh al-Arouri, deputy leader of the group’s political wing and founder of the military wing, the Qassam Brigades. The move represents a major regional escalation in Israel’s war against Gaza, which has so far killed more than 22,000 people there. But this is not the first time Israel has carried out an assassination inside Lebanon.
Al-Arouri had been living in exile in Lebanon since 2015. Israel has not claimed responsibility for the killings, but it is considered highly likely that Tel Aviv ordered the assassination.
For decades, Israel has attacked Palestinian leaders in Lebanon, a stronghold of Hamas ally Hezbollah. However, al-Arouri’s death comes after an 18-year hiatus in a long list of attempted and successful political assassinations.
These are some of the key cases.
1972 – After the Lod airport murders
One of Israel’s first targets in Lebanon was Ghassan Kanafani, a prominent Palestinian author and poet who was assassinated on July 8, 1972 in Beirut along with his 17-year-old niece. They had attached a grenade to the ignition switch of his car. When he started the car, a plastic bomb that had been placed behind the car’s bumper ignited.
Kanafani was a spokesperson for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). His assassination came after the May 30, 1972, mass shooting at Lod Airport (now Ben Gurion International Airport), in which 26 people were killed and dozens more wounded. Three members of the Japanese Red Army had been recruited to carry out the shootings, as the airport was already on high alert for possible attacks by Palestinians. Israel said Kanafani’s assassination was in response to this attack, but it is believed that the assassination was planned long before.
Bassam Abu Sharif, who became PFLP spokesman after Kanafani’s assassination, was also attacked with a package bomb in Beirut on July 25, 1972. Abu Sharif survived the attempt but suffered serious injuries: he partially lost his sight and hearing. , plus four fingers.
1973 – Response to the Munich kidnappings
On September 5, 1972, members of Black September, a faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), kidnapped 11 Israeli athletes at the Summer Olympics in Munich. The hostages were eventually killed in a failed rescue attempt by West German authorities.
In response, Israel launched an assassination campaign called Operation Spring of Youth, to target the masterminds behind the kidnapping. Traveling by boat from Haifa for an operation that would last from April 10 to 11, 1973, Israeli special forces landed on the beach of Beirut with their commander, the future prime minister, Ehud Barak, disguised as a woman.
They stormed a high-rise building and private homes of PLO officials in Beirut and Sidon that they had previously had under surveillance, blowing open the doors and shooting until their targets were dead. Three senior PLO officials were killed: Muhammad Youssef al-Najjar, deputy to PLO leader Yasser Arafat; spokesman Kamal Nasser; and Kamal Adwan, West Bank military leader.
1973 – 2001 – A long plot to kill Yasser Arafat
On October 1, 1973, Israel attempted to assassinate Arafat, as well as PLO members Khalil al-Wazir, Faruq al-Qaddumi, Hani al-Hassan, and Wadi Haddad during a meeting in Beirut. However, the bombs dropped on the building where the men were meeting did not detonate.
Plans to assassinate Arafat continued for years. Israeli intelligence laid out several plans to shoot down commercial airliners that could transport Arafat, but concerns about the possible political consequences of killing civilians in the attempt hampered those efforts.
Between June and August 1982, several attempts to eliminate Arafat were launched. Salt Fish, an Israeli task force created for that sole purpose, launched several bomb attacks against possible Arafat locations, but none managed to kill him.
It is believed that in 2001, Israel’s Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who considered Arafat a “Jew-killer,” finally decided to stop trying to assassinate him.
1979 – Another response to the Munich kidnappings
On January 22, 1979, Mossad agents executed an elaborate plot to assassinate Ali Hassan Salameh, 37, a senior PLO member believed to be the architect of the Munich kidnappings. Spies had joined his gym to befriend him weeks earlier and a British-Israeli agent rented an apartment near Salameh’s home to monitor his movements. Salameh was killed when his car passed by a mined Volkswagen that was detonated remotely.
1988 – Attempted assassination of Ahmad Jibril
On December 9, 1988, Israel attacked Palestinian bases in southern Lebanon, targeting Ahmad Jibril, then secretary general of the General Command of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP-GC). The commandos attacked locations on the outskirts of Beirut, but encountered stiff resistance from Palestinian fighters. Several Palestinian agents were killed. It was later revealed that Jibril was never there.
2006 – Murder of Sidon
On May 25, 2006, Mahmoud al-Majzoub, a senior leader of the Palestinian armed group Islamic Jihad and a close ally of Hezbollah, was assassinated in the city of Sidon. A car bomb placed on the door of al-Majzoub’s car exploded when he opened it. Israel denied responsibility for the attack, but both Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah blamed Tel Aviv. Nidal al-Majzoub, his brother, was also murdered.
2024 – The war in Gaza
On January 2, a drone strike in the southern Beirut suburbs of Dahiyeh left Saleh al-Arouri dead. Six other people were also killed, including senior Hamas military commanders Samir Findi and Azzam al-Aqraa. The men were on the second floor of an apartment building.
Israel has not claimed responsibility for the attack, but Lebanon’s interim prime minister, Najib Mikati, called the killing an “Israeli crime.” Hezbollah said the attack on Lebanon’s capital “will not go unpunished.”
