LONDON (Dispatches) – The occupying regime of Israel has informed its allies that it is preparing to send teams to assassinate Hamas leaders abroad, British daily the Times reported on Monday.
Unnamed intelligence sources told the newspaper that a “clear message” needed to be sent to the resistance movement.
According to the paper, Hamas is believed to have been warned of the impending hits by intelligence agencies in the Middle East and Europe.
While Hamas has not taken responsibility for most of the attacks since March 22 that have left 19 Zionists in Occupied Palestine and the West Bank dead, the movement’s Gaza leader Yahya Sinwar has repeatedly called for Palestinians to carry out retaliatory operations and the movement has publicly praised them.
However, Hamas did claim responsibility for an attack that killed a security officer guarding the West Bank settlement of Ariel last month.
According to The Times report, while some Israeli legislators and pundits have advocated assassinating Sinwar, officials are wary of carrying out assassinations in Gaza or the West Bank for fear it could spark rocket fire on occupied towns and cities.
The report said that, instead, any assassinations are more likely to take place in other countries in the region where Hamas leaders live, with Lebanon and Qatar given as examples.
The report said targets could include Saleh al-Arouri, a deputy leader of the resistance movement who splits his time between Qatar, Turkey and Lebanon and is in charge of West Bank operations.
The newspaper also named Zaher Jabarin, a senior figure in Hamas responsible for its finances.
Zionist security forces have conducted numerous terrorist operations over the entity’s 74-year history.
Use of the tool peaked during the Second Intifada in the early 2000s, when Israeli forces assassinated Hamas leaders in an attempt to stanch a wave of attacks in Zionist cities.
The occupying regime of Israel has previously also been accused of carrying out terrorist hits on Hamas operatives abroad. Hamas has blamed the Zionist regime for the 2016 assassination of Muhammad al-Zoari, a Tunisian aviation scientist and engineer who developed the resistance movement’s unmanned drones.
In 2018, Fadi Muhammad al-Batsh, a Gaza-born electrical engineer and avowed Hamas member, was gunned down by two motorcyclists as he walked to dawn prayers in Kuala Lumpur in 2018, in an assassination widely blamed on Israel.
In Dubai, in 2010, Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, a key Hamas member, was assassinated in his hotel room in a murder widely attributed to Mossad.
In 1997, Mossad agents attempted to poison senior Hamas official Khaled Mashaal in Jordan. The attempt failed and several years later Mashaal went on to become the leader of the resistance movement.
Hamas warned on Saturday that if the occupying regime resumed its assassination of senior resistance figures, the movement would go back to carrying out martyrdom operations and “burn” Israeli cities.
The movement’s military wing also issued a pledge of an “unprecedented response” and a “regional earthquake” should Israel attempt to harm any of its top leadership, especially Sinwar.
In a speech Saturday, Sinwar threatened grave consequences should Zionists continue visiting the flashpoint Haram al-Sharif and the Al-Aqsa Compound. The Al-Aqsa Mosque is the third-holiest shrine for Muslims.
Sinwar also urged Palestinians to strike Zionists with whatever they had — including axes.
Israeli forces have repeatedly raided the Al-Aqsa Compound over the past few weeks. The violence echoed scenes from last year when Zionist raids at the site helped spark a war between the occupying regime and Gaza-based resistance movements.
Ever since the May 2021 war, resistance movements threatened to fire rockets at the occupying regime of Israel if it violated “red lines” in Al-Aqsa.
Islamic Jihad on Sunday vowed to launch extremely painful and devastating retaliatory strikes against sensitive targets inside the occupied territories if the Zionist regime resumes assassinations.
“The assassination of any resistance leaders, above all Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, will open up the gates of the hell to occupiers,” Khaled al-Batsh, a member of the Islamic Jihad politburo, said.