News / Palestine

Hamas security forces arrest man behind assassination of top cmdr.

Thursday, 11 May 2017 3:03 PM [ Last Update: Thursday, 11 May 2017 3:56 PM ]

Slain Hamas official and military commander Mazen Fuqahaa

The new chief of Hamas’s political bureau says Palestinian security forces in the besieged Gaza Strip have arrested the man responsible for the assassination of a high-ranking military commander of the resistance movement earlier this year.

Speaking at a press conference in Gaza City on Thursday, Ismail Haniyeh stated that a fair and appropriate punishment will be handed out on the basis of the movement’s judicial principles, and in honor of Mazen Fuqahaa, all Palestinian martyrs as well as all prisoners that are lingering in Israeli jails.

“Even though the assassination of senior national commander inflicted pain on Ezzedeen al-Qassam Brigades (the military wing of Hamas) and our people, we are happy and proud that our security services managed to track down the culprit. The blood of our leaders and our people is highly precious,” he pointed out.

The Hamas chief stressed that the Israeli regime was behind the criminal act.

Chief of Hamas's political bureau Ismail Haniyeh gestures during a news conference as the wife of slain senior Hamas commander Mazen Fuqahaa stands next to him, in Gaza City on May 11, 2017. (Photo by Reuters)

“The Israeli occupation is the entity that gave orders regarding Fuqahaa’s assassination. The killer has confessed to the crime and spelled the assassination out in details,” Haniyeh pointed out.

He went on to say that the Ministry of Interior in the Gaza Strip was going to hold a press conference within the next few days to reveal the details of the top Hamas commander’s assassination.

The body of Palestinian Hamas official Mazen Fuqahaa is carried by members of the Ezzedeen al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, during his funeral in Gaza City on March 25, 2017. (Photo by AFP)

Unknown assailants fired at Fuqahaa at the entrance to a residence in Tal al-Hawa neighborhood of Gaza City on March 24. They shot four bullets into the man’s head before they fled the area.

Izzat al-Rishq, a member of Hamas's political bureau, said the assassination was carried out with a gun equipped with a silencer.

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