The assassination of Salah al-Arouri, deputy chairman of Hamas' political projection, led to a renewed wave of interest in the terror organization's leadership in an attempt to understand who was in Israel's crosshairs and who might be next in line to be assassinated. In a detailed investigation on Thursday, the Wall Street Journal revealed the image of the organization's financier, al-Arouri's deputy, Zahar Jabarin.
Jabarin, born in the town of Salfit in Samaria, is one of Hamas' veteran operatives and in the past was involved in terrorist activities such as recruiting terrorists and planning attacks. In 1993 he was arrested and imprisoned in Israel until he was released in the Shalit deal in 2011 and deported to Turkey. Since then, Jabarin has become well entrenched in the Hamas movement's political apparatus and has emerged as one of the organization's most talented and dedicated administrators.
Watch: The moment of al-Arouri's assassination in Beirut
According to a Wall Street Journal investigation, Jabarin's influence on Hamas' fundraising apparatus is so profound that Israel and the United States believe that the money laundering mechanisms created by Jabarin financed the procurement of weapons, training, and military equipment for the October 7 massacre, the largest military operation by Hamas in its history.
"Jabarin played a very important role because he managed Hamas' entire financial system outside the Gaza Strip. In that sense, Jabkin is really the CEO of Hamas," Uzi Shaya, a former Mossad operative who investigates illegal financing mechanisms, told The Wall Street Journal.
الأسير المحرر/ زاهر جبارين ينعى رفيق دربه الشيخ #صالح_العاروري وإخوانه الشهداء. pic.twitter.com/sT0kYv3YKv
— أدهم أبو سلمية 🇵🇸 Adham Abu Selmiya (@adham922) January 3, 2024
According to the investigation, Jabarin succeeded in his job because he made good use of the artificial distinction between Hamas' political bureau and the organization's military faction, the Al-Qassem Brigades. In interviews with military media, Taf often said that "Israel equates an occupied house with apples," referring to funding Hamas' political faction as financing terrorism.
Thanks to this misrepresentation, Jabarin was able to make use of financial mechanisms in Turkey and Lebanon, thereby transferring huge sums of money from Iran directly to the Gaza Strip. Under his direction, Hamas' finance department operated from a blacked-out window building in Istanbul's financial center and operated freely, like a legitimate private company. Jabarin himself has always made sure to deny any connection to Hamas funding, even though he claimed it was "a great honor for everyone involved in it."
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