Israel to replace ‘Mossad officer’ expelled by UK
The Israeli diplomat who is to be expelled from Britain over the alleged forgery of British passports connected to the killing of a top Hamas militant, is a Mossad officer who will be replaced by the Jewish state, Israeli media reports said on Wednesday.
Downing Street on Tuesday declared the unnamed diplomat persona non grata after a police investigation found that Israel stole the identities of 12 British citizens to make the fake passports.
Public radio and other Israeli media said the diplomat was an officer in the Mossad spy agency and would be replaced "soon" by another intelligence officer.
Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said he was "very disappointed" by the expulsion, but a senior official said the Jewish state would not retaliate.
Foreign Secretary David Miliband said there were "compelling reasons" to believe that Israel was behind the forgeries used by the team which killed Mahmud al-Mabhuh in Dubai in January.
"I've asked that a member of the embassy of Israel be withdrawn from the UK as a result of this affair and this is taking place," he told parliament.
The Foreign Office declined to specify the position of the expelled diplomat, but reports in several British newspapers said the diplomat was believed to be Mossad's station chief in London, without citing sources.
The killing of Mabhuh has been widely blamed on Israel, which has declined to comment on the affair in line with a longstanding policy of ambiguity.
The suspects used the identities of 12 Britons, as well as Australian, French, German and Irish nationals. Interpol has issued arrest notices for 27 suspects wanted by Dubai in connection with the killing.
Many of the forged passports bore the names of Israelis of dual nationality who appear to have been the victims of identity theft.
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Some disagreement exists over the meaning of the word "Hamas".[citation needed] Hamas is an acronym of the Arabic phrase حركة المقاومة الاسلامية, or Harakat al-Muqāwama al-Islāmiyya or "Islamic Resistance Movement". In Arabic the word "Hamās" translates roughly to "enthusiasm, zeal, élan, or fighting spirit".[39] The initial consonant is not the ordinary /h/ of English, but a slightly more rasping sound, the voiceless pharyngeal fricative /ħ/, transcribed as <ḥ>; it is for this reason that speakers of Hebrew frequently use the voiceless uvular fricative /χ/, the equivalent sound for most Hebrew speakers.
The Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas's military wing formed in 1992, is named in commemoration of influential Palestinian nationalist Sheikh Izz ad-Din al-Qassam. Armed Hamas cells sometimes refer to themselves as "Students of Ayyash", "Students of the Engineer", or "Yahya Ayyash Units",[40] to commemorate Yahya Ayyash, an early Hamas bomb-maker killed in 1996.
Israel under pressure over Hamas killing in Dubai
Israeli commentators are criticizing the vaunted Mossad spy agency for sloppiness after revelations that the alleged assassins of a Hamas military commander in Dubai used identities of at least seven European-born Israelis.
The sharp criticism of Mossad is making it tough for Israel to maintain its silence over the killing. The spy agency is being accused of exposing agents and invading citizens' privacy.
Dubai police released names, photos, and passport numbers of 11 members of an alleged hit-squad that killed Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in his Dubai hotel room last month. Dubai says all carried European passports.
But most of the identities appear fake and at least seven match real people in Israel who claim they are victims of identity theft.
