Dubai, March 02: Following the assassination of a Hamas operative, Dubai police will use voice and face profiling to detect Israelis arriving on foreign passports, the police chief said.
Israelis have always been forbidden from travelling to the UAE on their passports, but dual-nationals could use their alternative passport to enter the country.
Lt gen Dahi Khalfan Tamim said that now travellers suspected of being Israeli will not be allowed into the Gulf country even if they arrive on another passport. The Emirates will “deny entry to anyone suspected of having Israeli citizenship,” Tamim said on Monday.
The move follows the killing of a senior Hamas operative in Dubai, blamed by the Emirates authorities on Israel’s Mossad spy agency. Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was found dead in a Dubai hotel room on January 20.
The authorities have identified 26 suspects of the hit squad that travelled to Dubai on fake identities and forged European and Australian passports to kill al-Mabhouh.
At least 15 of the suspected killers share names with Israeli citizens, further fuelling suspicions the Mossad was behind the hit. “It is disgraceful how the killers abused European (and other) passports and UAE soil to assassinate,” Tamim told reporters at the sidelines of a security conference in Abu Dhabi.
-Agencies