“The Dubai police have provided no incriminating proof,” a senior Israeli official said.
“The threats against Meir Dagan are absurd,” the Israeli official said. “The accusations are baseless. Police have not explained the circumstances of his death, or even any proof that he’s been assassinated,” he said. Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh, one of the founders of Hamas’ military wing, was found dead in his Dubai hotel room on Jan. 20.
Dubai police chief Lt. Gen. Dahi Khalfan Tamim said he was almost certain the hit was carried out by the Mossad, Israel’s espionage agency, which has used fake passports in similar operations in the past. The killers’ use of allegedly fake passports prompted Britain, Ireland, France and Germany on Thursday to call in Israeli envoys for talks at their foreign ministries.
The Israeli official played down the issue. “Israel was only asked to help investigate the use of the fake passports.” Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman will face tough questioning on Monday when he meets European counterparts in Brussels, in a trip that was planned before the Dubai murder.
In Ramallah, Hamas claimed on Friday that two ex-officers from the rival Fatah organization were involved in the assassination of Al-Mabhouh and Fatah shot back by insinuating Hamas members were the ones who collaborated with the killers.
Dubai has also said police had two Palestinians in custody for alleged involvement in the murder of Al-Mabhouh.
A Hamas website, the Palestine Information Center, said those two men were former Fatah security officers.
Izzat Al-Rishq, a member of Hamas’ leadership in Damascus, told The Associated Press on Friday that Hamas is “not accusing any party” other than Israel, though he said the agents might have used “small collaborators for logistic issues.”
The Hamas website identified the two men as Anwar Shheibar and Ahmad Hassanain. It said they served in Fatah’s security services in Gaza, fled the territory in 2006, and currently work for a construction company owned by a high-ranking Fatah official, Mohammed Dahlan.
Dahlan denied any connection to the men or to the killing, telling the Kuwait-based paper Gulf News in an interview published Friday that Hamas was “following mirages created by Israel.” A Fatah spokesman also denied the charge. “Hamas is trying by these accusations to cover up the security flaws in the first lines of its leadership,” said Adnan Damiri, a spokesman for Palestinian security forces in the Fatah-ruled West Bank.
“Hamas is the only one to know the movement of Al-Mabhouh, and from there the information went to the Israelis.” Officials of the Fatah-affiliated Palestinian Authority in the West Bank city of Ramallah said the two men are former members of Fatah who later joined Hamas security forces in Gaza. They said the men were sent to Dubai on Hamas business last month but had no further details.
Hamas and Fatah have been trading accusations over the affair for days, but Friday’s allegations were the first time names were used. Each side has made attempts to tone down the rhetoric — perhaps to avoid destroying prospects for reconciliation between the rivals who control separate territories on opposite sides of Israel.
