Body of Palestinian killed in Malaysia arrives in Gaza

By Mohamed Majed

GAZA CITY, Palestine (AA) - The body of Fadi al-Batsh, a Palestinian thought to be linked to Hamas who was killed by unknown assailants in Kuala Lumpur on Saturday, arrived in the Gaza Strip on Thursday evening for burial.

He will be buried tomorrow in his hometown of Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip.

Al-Batsh’s body, accompanied by his widow and children, was received at Gaza’s Rafah border crossing with Egypt by dozens of Palestinians and leaders of Palestinian political factions.

On Saturday, al-Batsh, a research engineer, was gunned down near his home in the Malaysian capital by two gunmen who fled the scene.

While his family has accused Israeli spy agency Mossad of having carried out the assassination, Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman has denied Israel’s involvement in the killing.

According to a source at Cairo International Airport, al-Batsh’s body was flown from Kuala Lumpur to Cairo by a Saudi airliner.

“His body was then taken to the [Egypt-Gaza] crossing by ambulance,” the source, speaking anonymously due to restrictions on speaking to media, said.

Israeli media has described al-Batsh as “a Hamas engineer and an expert in drone-making”, hinting at the possibility that the Mossad had played a role in his death.

The Israeli intelligence services have killed numerous Palestinian resistance activists in the past, many of them overseas.