While Israel hasn’t publicly taken credit for the assassination, Israeli intelligence has been trying to kill al-Arouri for years and the United States has had a 5 million dollar bounty on him since 2015. Many in Hamas considered him to technically be the leader of the terror group, because of his military history, and because he is the one who managed the negotiations for the Gilad Shalit deal, which led to the release of over a thousand of Palestinian terrorists, including Yahya Sinwar.