Three Israelis still believed to be held in Hebron area; deported terrorist Saleh al-Arouri, who reports to Khaled Mashaal, said to have been directing West Bank terror cells for years
Hamas operative Saleh al-Aruri (photo credit: Youtube screenshot)
Hamas leader currently living in Turkey is believed to be behind the kidnapping of the three Israeli teenagers in the West Bank last week, an Israeli security official said Thursday.
The official spoke as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that the attempts to bring home the three Israelis were making progress — “We today know more than we knew a few days ago,” he said.
According to the unnamed official, Saleh al-Arouri — a former West Bank resident deported from the region after serving a prison sentence in Israel for several years, who is now a leading figure in Hamas overseas operations — is thought to have been a key figure for years in attempts to initiate terror attacks in the West Bank, funding and arranging the training of terror cells.
The official claimed al-Arouri, who used to live in a village north of Ramallah, has urged West Bank operatives incessantly to set up terror cells and perpetrate kidnappings. Al-Arouri has financially sponsored these cells, which were trained and directed to abduct Israelis. Often that money was transferred through charities to obfuscate their real destination, the would-be kidnappers, the official said.
Khaled Mashaal (photo credit: AP/Amine Landoulsi)
The official conceded that Israel had no “smoking gun” proving al-Arouri’s involvement in the kidnapping last Thursday night of Gil-ad Shaar, Eyal Yifrach and Naftali Frankel, “but I have no doubt that al-Arouri was connected to the act.” There is an increasing belief in the Israeli security services that the kidnapping was directed by Hamas’s overseas hierarchy, he noted, adding that al-Arouri is answerable to Hamas’s political bureau chief Khaled Mashaal.
Israeli forces have made some 280 arrests in the West Bank in recent days, and have also targeted Hamas funding networks, confiscating computers in banks and other evidence. Elite IDF units are on call should there be a need for any particularly sensitive operations, Channel 2 news reported. It added that the three Israelis are still believed to be held in the Hebron area, and said further arrests were expected.
“We are making progress,” Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon said. “We’ll get to the terrorists in the end, and we’ll get to our kidnapped boys.”
In the past two years, dozens of al-Arouri’s emissaries have visited the West Bank after obtaining entry through Jordan, the Israeli official said. Several of them were arrested, but a number escaped the notice of Israeli security officials and were able to leave the country with their missions accomplished.
Those who were arrested brought money and written messages on behalf of al-Arouri, which explicitly directed the establishment of terror cells for kidnappings.
“It must be understood that [Hamas] is not a standard army, and there are no direct orders, but only general directives, and even now the directive to kidnap stands,” he said.
Overall, the source explained, there are four primary Hamas sources which can organize and commit attacks – the Hamas branch abroad, in which al-Arouri is a key figure; the Gaza leadership; operatives in the field, who the official claimed were more constrained by Israeli security; and terrorists held in Israeli prisons, whose freedom of movement is similarly restricted.
The official said it was less likely that Hamas in Gaza or prisoners released to the coastal enclave as part of the Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange were behind the attack.
“Although they have also tried to perpetrate attacks, their chances of success were lower.”
Overall for Hamas, the official said "...even though Hamas is less interested in an escalation of hostilities [with Israel], ...there is one explicit instruction, and that is to continue to kidnap Israelis.”
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