BICOM

Malaysian police believe that the killers of Hamas engineer Fadi al-Batsh are still in the country. The suspects were believed to have entered Malaysia sometime in late January using fake identification, but it was not known what nationalities they were or where they had travelled from.

Following the shooting, the police released a photo of the suspects. Witnesses described them as well-built and light-skinned, possibly Middle Eastern or European.

Fuzi described the killing as “very professionally done,” noting there were other people at the scene at the time of the shooting who were unharmed.

Hamas has accused Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency of assassinating al-Batsh and intelligence commentators in Israel have reported that he was an expert in missile and drone technology, as well as in developing new techniques in Gaza to use against Israel.

Israeli Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman said in response to the attack: “We heard about this on the news. There’s a tradition at this point among terrorist organizations of blaming Israel for every settling of accounts.”

Yesterday, the Egyptian authorities informed Israel that they would let al-Batsh’s remains be brought into Gaza for burial via Egypt. Israel had asked Egypt to make the transfer conditional on the release of the two bodies of Israel Defence Force (IDF) soldiers and two Israeli civilians still held by Hamas.