Israeli spies ‘used Bosnian passports for assassination’

GAZA CITY: Hamas on Thursday alleged Israeli spies used Bosnian passports to enter Tunisia and assassinate one of its drone experts as the Palestinian movement announced details of its probe into the December incident.

Tunisian engineer Mohamed Zaouari was shot dead in his car in December 2016 by unknown gunmen, with Hamas accusing Israel of responsibility at the time.

Senior Hamas igure Mohamed Nazzal made the allegations on Thursday in a statement and at a press conference in Beirut.

He said an investigation concluded a number of agents from Israeli intelligence agency Mossad had operated in Tunisia over several months, including pretending to be foreign journalists in order to get close to Zaouari.

The main two assassins who entered the country before the killing were using Bosnian passports, Nazzal said.

Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon declined comment. Israel also had not previously commented on the killing.

Zaouari, 49, was murdered at the wheel of his car outside his house in Tunisia’s second city Sfax on Dec.15 last year.

The engineer and drone expert had worked for a decade with Hamas, the movement that runs the Gaza Strip, the group said at the time.

Tens of thousands of Palestinians gathered in Gaza last week to commemorate the death of veteran leader Yasser Arafat in the irst such memorial in the Hamas-run territory since 2007.