Hamas hails expulsion of Israeli agent from UK

A top Hamas figure welcomes the UK’s deportation of an Israeli official, whom he said was involved in the assassination of one of the Palestinian resistance movement’s leaders in Dubai.

On Tuesday, London issued the expulsion order for the agent, reportedly serving with the Israeli Spy Agency Mossad, over the use of fake British passports in the assassination of a Hamas commander in Dubai.

Salah al-Bardawil, spokesman for Hamas’s parliamentary bloc said in a statement later that “we in Hamas welcome the British position and the decision to expel the Mossad official in the Zionist embassy for his role in the criminal assassination,” AFP reported.

The January 20 foul play in a luxury hotel room was caught on CCTV cameras, leading the Dubai emirate to put the name of 27 suspects on the international wanted list through Interpol.

The Dubai Police Force said suspects used the identities of 12 British citizens as well as passports from Ireland, France, Australia and Germany.

Last month, the British daily The Sunday Times wrote that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had been riefed on the assassination plan in an early-January meeting with Mossad chief Meir Dagan.

Hamas has also accused Tel Aviv of carrying out the hit, and Dubai Police Chief Dahi Khalfan Tamim has said that “Dagan and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will head the list (of international arrest warrants) if it is proven that Mossad is behind the murder.”

“We hope this condemnation will rise to the legal level and result in the trial and prosecution of the [Israeli]occupation leaders for this and other crimes they have committed against our people,” Bardawil added in his Tuesday comments.

Reacting to the recent expulsion, however, Aryeh Eldad, National Religious Party lawmaker in the Israeli Knesset (parliament) said in comments quoted by Sky News that “I think [the] British are behaving hypocritically….”