Hamas blames Israel for Dubai death

Hamas has claimed that one of its commanders was assassinated by Israeli agents in Dubai.

A statement by the Palestinian group, which controls the Gaza Strip, alleged on Friday that Israel had killed Mahmoud Abdul Raouf al-Mabhouh.

"I cannot reveal the circumstances. We are working with the authorities in the United Arab Emirates," Izzat al-Rishq, a Hamas official, was quoted by the Reuters news agency as saying.

But a brother of al-Mabhouh said he had been killed by electric shock after an electrical appliance was held to his head.

"The first results of a joint investigation by Hamas and the [United Arab] Emirates show he was killed by an electrical appliance that was held to his head," Fayed al-Mabhuh told AFP by telephone.

"Material was sent to a Paris laboratory which confirmed he was killed by electric shock."

Al-Mabhouh, who was born in the Gaza Strip but who had been living in Syria since 1989, was allegedly assassinated a day after he arrived in Dubai.

Israeli officials have so far offered no comment on the incident.

'Important' member

Al-Mabhouh's body arrived in Damascus on Thursday, where he is due to be buried.

Rula Amin, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Lebanon, said: "It seems that Hamas has decided to reveal this incident [Al-Mabhouh's alleged killing] about ten days after it happened - it took place on January 20. Why they only decided to talk about it now, we still don't know."

Al-Mabhouh is said to have engineered the capture of two Israeli soldiers during a Palestinian uprising in the 1980s and was imprisoned several times by Israeli forces. Israel razed his home in Gaza.

Hamas has said he was an "important" member of Izz al-Din al-Qassam brigades, Hamas's military wing named after a Syrian religious leader who fought British colonial forces in Palestine in the 1930s.

-- with input from agencies