Hamas Assassination Reads Like A Movie Script

Hamas Assassination Reads Like A Movie Script

Passport Photos Of The Alleged Assassins

The scenario sounds like something out of a thriller novel or typical espionage move script, but the assassination of senior Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Mabhouh is not a work of fiction. Last week, the 50-year-old’s murder in a Dubai hotel was reported with fingers pointing at Israel's intelligence agency, the Mossad. Up until now, two Palestinians have been detained in connection with the assassination. A former Palestinian Authority officer of security and a French national who refers to himself as “Peter”. The newest evidence surfaced from surveillance tapes of the hotel show that there were 11 people involved (Ten men and one woman) carrying a variety of passports. The police claimed that they dressed up as tennis players and that the woman dressed up as a housekeeper. The killers apparently left behind medicine by the body to defer the police. You can watch video from the surveillance camera, below.



There are some interesting twists in the plot. One being that the door of the Al-Bustan Rotana Hotel had been chain locked from the inside. Second, a British man residing in Israel shares the same name as one of the alleged killers and claims that his identity was stolen from him. “Angry, upset and scared,” was what Melvyn Adam Mildiner described himself as. The Foreign Office has discovered that passports used in the killing were all fabricated.

Since al-Mabhouh’s left in 1989, he has been a target for Israel because of his involvement in the killing of two IDF soldiers. He also was considered to be an arms smuggler for Hamas and may have been involved in smuggling weapons from Sudan to Gaza during the Gaza War in 2008 - 2009.

I remember when I first read the article I immediately thought of the film Munich, and the assassinations done by the Israelis after the Munich Olympics. International law calls assassination attempts acts of terror, even if it is an attempt on a terrorist. Would Israel send 11 people to assassinate one person without protection? Sounds kind of odd giving the fact that they have well trained people to do that and would not need 11 people. At the same time, it could be an obvious message Israel is giving to Hamas, “Don’t mess with us!” We may never know, but it becomes obvious tensions are increasing between the two factions. This may have also been a result of a bad arms trafficking deal too. I guess we will never know the truth.

What do you think of this interesting case?