Tommy Johnson
Saleh al-Arouri, a top political and military leader of the Palestinian resistance, was assassinated by the Israeli state in Lebanon on January 2nd. Along with al-Arouri, six others were killed after an Israeli drone targeted the third floor of a building in a busy Beirut residential district. Two of the others killed are believed to be military commanders of the Al-Qassam Brigades and the other four active militants in Hamas.
The Zionist occupation led by the Israeli state has not admitted to perpetrating the strike. However, the government of Lebanon has stated that the strike represents an Israeli provocation and attack on Lebanese sovereignty. Hezbollah, the resistance organization which aligns itself with the Palestinian cause of national liberation and which controls the neighborhood in which the assassination took place, stated that it considers the action “to be a serious assault on Lebanon, its people, its security, sovereignty and resistance.” They further stated, “We in Hezbollah affirm that this crime will never pass without response and punishment.” Hezbollah has been active in the glorious armed struggle carried out against the Zionist occupation and its Israeli state.
Al-Arouri was a hero of the Palestinian resistance and was 57 at the time of his martyrdom. He was the deputy head of the Hamas Political Bureau, and helped establish its military where he remained active as a military leader. He joined Hamas in 1987 and led military actions in the West Bank. He coordinated international support for the Palestinian resistance as a liaison with Hezbollah and Iran. He was a former political prisoner held in an Israeli dungeon, who upon released wasted no time in returning to the fight of his people. He successfully negotiated the release of 1,000 captive Palestinians in exchange for one Israeli soldier in 2011. His home town in the occupied West Bank was destroyed by the Zionists this past October. He will live on in the glorious resistance of the Palestinian people and be remembered around the world as one who died for freedom at the hands of tyrants.
The state of Israel as a puppet of US imperialism consistently violates international law and infringes on the sovereignty of nations in the Middle East by using drones to launch assassinations. This recent attack will only further the resolve of the Palestinian resistance and those who support them while drawing more opposition to Israel and its hostile presence in the region. No neighboring country can expect peace as long as Israel exists, and all efforts to normalize its presence are increasingly undermined. While the Israeli government tends to avoid admitting their illegal acts of murder carried out in other countries, their leader Benjamin Netanyahu has openly sworn to kill Palestinian leaders wherever they are to be found. Such arrogance can only provoke outrage and resistance in all just people, and so the Israeli state’s brazen attacks will forge more brave men like the martyrs they create.
photo: Saleh al-Arouri in 2017, Sayyed Mahmoud Hosseini/Tasnim News Agency
