Gaza, February 18: Thousands of Hamas supporters vowed revenge on Wednesday at a rally in honour of a top commander assassinated in Dubai, in a murder that is widely blamed on Israel’s notorious Mossad.
“The decision to avenge the martyr Mahmud al-Mabhuh has been taken, and it will be equal to the crime,” Abu Obeida, a spokesman for Hamas’s armed wing, told the crowd.
“All you murderers can do now is wait,” he warned.
“We are the ones who will decide the tools suitable to carry out our promise. We will not tell you how or where or when, but only to prepare to receive the hellfire of our anger.”
Shortly after the speech exiled Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal gave a televised address from Damascus in which he slammed the murder which is widely blamed on Israel’s notorious Mossad spy agency.
“The time for promises and talk of revenge is done. Now is the time for action,” he said.
A masked marching band trampled a long Israeli flag before other fighters in military fatigues glided down on ziplines from the surrounding buildings.
“We do not cry tears, but bullets and bombs!” shouted the master of ceremonies from a lit-up stage with a flaming banner as a backdrop.
Mabhuh, a senior commander in the armed wing of the resistance group, was assassinated last month in Dubai by a professional hit squad of at least 11 people carrying forged European passports.
Mossadvhas kept mum on the affair in line with its assassination tradition.
—Agencies