Bloomberg.com
By Calev Ben-David and Jonathan Ferziger
Jan. 31 (Bloomberg) -- Israeli National Infrastructures Minister Uzi Landau denied claims by Hamas that his visit to an international conference in Abu Dhabi this month was connected to the death of one of the Islamic movement’s leaders in neighboring Dubai.
Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was found dead in his Dubai hotel room on Jan. 20 and Hamas officials charged that Israeli agents who arrived with Landau in the United Arab Emirates three days before were responsible for his death.
“My entourage accompanied me to an international conference and was with me the whole time,” Landau told Israel Army Radio. “What we are seeing now is a wild Mediterranean imagination going hand-in-hand with Arab-Palestinian rage about an Israeli flag flying in a formal way over the convention hall.”
Israel has accused al-Mabhouh of being behind the kidnapping and killing of two Israeli soldiers in Gaza in 1988. Most of those alleged to have been involved in the soldiers’ deaths have since been detained or killed by Israel, including Hamas founder and spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin in 2004.
Al-Mabhouh entered Dubai Jan. 19 and his body was found in a hotel room there the next day, according to a statement from the emirate’s Information Office. Doctors who examined his body said he died after an electric shock, his brother, Fayek al- Mabhouh, told Israel’s Haaretz. Israel tried in the past to kill al-Mabhouh several times, the newspaper cited his brother as saying.
Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Zahar said in an interview that al- Mabhouh’s killers could have entered the U.A.E. with false passports as members of Landau’s entourage.
Professional Gang
“Israel wants to change the rules of the game and to open the international field for battles, so it will be responsible for this,” he told reporters in Gaza City.
Dubai police said that “initial investigations indicate the crime was carried out by a professional criminal gang that had been following the victim,” according to the Information Office. The gang members have fled the country, police said.
Israel had no comment on the matter, said Mark Regev, a spokesman for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Al-Mabhouh helped found the Hamas armed wing known as Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades in 1988, at the beginning of the first Palestinian intifada, or uprising, against Israel. The militant leader, originally from the Gaza Strip, fled the enclave in 1988 and had been living abroad, mainly in Damascus, with his wife and children. Al-Mabhouh was responsible for smuggling arms from Iran to Gaza, Haaretz said.
Seized Control
Hamas seized control of Gaza in clashes with the Fatah faction of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in June 2007, leaving Abbas to administer the West Bank. Hamas, which has the backing of Iran and Syria, is regarded as a terrorist organization by Israel, the U.S. and European Union.
Landau traveled to Abu Dhabi, the United Arab Emirates capital, to attend the International Renewable Energy Conference. U.A.E. authorities confirmed the Israeli minister’s presence at the conference and emphasized it won’t change the Gulf nation’s refusal to recognize Israel.
--With assistance from Saud Abu Ramadan in Gaza City.
--Editors: Peter Hirschberg, Louis Meixler.
To contact the reporters on this story: Calev Ben-David in Jerusalem at +972-2-640-1105 or cbendavid@bloomberg.net Jonathan Ferziger in Tel Aviv at +9722-754-1142 or jferziger@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Peter Hirschberg at +972-2-640-1104 or phirschberg@bloomberg.net
