Israel defense minister vigdor Liberman has stopped short to claim Israel’s responsibility in the assassination of Tunisian engineer Mohammed Al-Zawahri also known as a Hamas militant.
“If someone was killed in Tunisia, he’s not likely to be a peace activist or a Nobel Prize candidate,” Liberman said before adding “We will continue to do in the best possible way what we know how to do — that is to protect our interests.”
Israel has been blamed by Palestinian movement for the assassination of the 49-year old man outside his house on December 15.
Zawahri, a Tunisian engineer and university lecturer was killed by 20 bullets in his car outside his house of the Tunisian second city of Sfax.
The victim lived in exile for 20 years and only came back to Tunisia after the 2011 revolution. He had reportedly been working for Hamas for 10 years and tried to sneak into Israel in 2014.
Israel accuses the Tunisian engineer for being behind Hamas’s drone program.
Tunisian interior minister Hedi Majdoub also claimed that a foreign hand is behind the assassination without going into details.
The assassination according to the Tunisian official had been planned since June this year and was masterminded from two European capitals namely Vienna and Budapest.
Three suspects including a female journalist have been arrested in connection to the assassination, all of them Tunisians, reports say.
The female journalist according to Majdoub was hired by foreigners posing as a media company planning to make documentaries in Tunisia for a Malaysian TV channel, including one about the aerospace industry in Arab states. The company asked the journalist to contact Zawahri as one of the interviewees for the documentary film, Israeli media Time of Israel reports.
The engineer’s assassination sparked anti-Israel demonstration in capital Tunis Tuesday. Hundreds of Tunisians waving Palestinian flags denounced Israel’s alleged implication.
“With our soul, with our blood, we will avenge you Palestine,” they chanted.
Zawahri has been considered a martyr.
