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Bombshell Report Sheds Light On Israel’s Alleged Killing Of Enemy Bomb-makers

The Media Line took to the streets of Jerusalem to gauge whether the average citizen agrees with the policy of targeted assassinations

The New York Times dropped a bombshell report detailing Israel’s alleged attempt to eradicate Hamas bomb-makers. According to the paper, the April 21 killing in Malaysia of Fadi Muhammad al-Batsh was part of a Mossad campaign to end the terrorist group’s practice of sending scientists abroad to learn how to engineer and acquire weapons to use against the Jewish state.

The Israeli spy agency has long been accused of employing targeted assassinations as a counter-terrorism method, including the elimination of multiple Iranian nuclear scientists and, perhaps most notably, Hizbullah’s former legendary military leader Imad Mughniyeh who was killed in 2008 by a car bomb as he was walking the streets of Damascus. More recently, Muhammad al-Zawari, who produced drones and unmanned sea vessels for Hamas, was gunned down in Tunisia in December 2016, a killing likewise attributed to the Mossad.

While Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman suggested that al-Batsh was the victim of an intra-Palestinian feud—this, despite Jerusalem’s policy of not commenting on covert operations—the Times‘ piece suggests that the nature of the killing points to meticulous planning and bears the hallmark of the Mossad.

On the day al-Batsh was targeted he was scheduled to travel to Turkey, ostensibly to attend an academic conference. However, an intelligence official told the newspaper that al-Batsh instead was slated to meet with a Hamas official in Istanbul, which, the report contends, serves as the terror organization’s hub for international training programs.

But the Mossad is not infallible, as evidenced by the botched killing in 2010 of senior Hamas commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in the Al Bustan Rotana hotel in Dubai. After taking the mark out, members of the assassination team were themselves outed as they were caught on camera. The incident caused an international firestorm and a major diplomatic crisis for Jerusalem, given that the passports of 12 British citizens—and those of four other nations, including Germany and Ireland—were stolen and used by the Israeli agents.

Accordingly, the practice is fraught with danger, albeit Israel apparently believes the security benefits outweigh the risks.

The Media Line took to the streets of Jerusalem to gauge whether the average citizen agrees.