Gaza, January 29: Israel has assassinated a senior Hamas military commander in Dubai, an official in the Palestinian Islamist group said on Friday.
Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was killed on Jan. 20, Izzat al-Rishq told .
“I cannot reveal the circumstances. We are working with the authorities in the United Arab Emirates,” said Rishq, who is a member of Hamas’s politburo.
Rishq said Mabhouh was an “important” member of Izz el-Deen al- Qassam brigades, Hamas’s military wing named after a Syrian religious leader who fought British colonial forces in Palestine in the 1930s.
Mabhouh, born 50 years ago in the Gaza Strip but who had been living in Syria since 1989, was assassinated a day after he arrived in Dubai, said Rishq.
Syria and Iran are the main backers of Hamas, which was founded two decades ago and now controls the Gaza Strip.
Israel has killed a number of Hamas figures since then, but the group has refused to abandon its fight against the Jewish state.
Rishq said Mabhouh engineered the capture of two Israeli soldiers during a Palestinian uprising in the 1980s and was imprisoned several times by Israeli forces. Israel razed his home in Gaza.
Rishq lives in exile in Damascus, along with several of Hamas’s main figures, including its leader Khaled Meshaal.
The United States, which has started a rapprochement with Damascus, wants Syrian authorities to help neutralise Hamas as an armed Middle East force.
Syria, which is seeking peace with Israel, resisted U.S. pressure several years ago to expel the Hamas leadership and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has said repeatedly that resistance was a legitimate right of the Palestinian people.
Hamas also has presence in Lebanon. A bomb in Beirut killed two of its members.
—Agencies