Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast says Tehran seeks to establish and fortify unity among Palestinians against Israel.

Mehmanparast on Saturday dismissed remarks by acting Palestinian Authority Chief Mahmoud Abbas who claimed that Iran was impeding reconciliation talks between his Fatah group and the Hamas resistance movement.

“Iran doesn’t want Hamas to sign the Cairo reconciliation document,” Abbas said during a meeting in the Tunisian capital on Friday.

In response, Mehmanparast said that Iran sought unity and solidarity among Palestinians.

“In the first place, the position of the Islamic Republic of Iran is to create unity among Palestinians and in the second to seriously pursue the rights of the Palestinians to regain their land and return to their territory under a Palestinian government.”

Iran believes that the only solution to the Palestinian issue is to hold a free referendum, in which the Palestinians can determine their own fate.

Fatah and Hamas are yet to reach an Egyptian-mediated unity deal to end divisions.

The proposal put forward by Cairo, which acts as a mediator in the reconciliation talks, aims to lay the groundwork for new presidential and legislative elections.

The Palestinian Prime Minister says that the Arab League decision to back the US-sponsored talks with Israel accelerated Tel Aviv’s settlement drive in Jerusalem (Al-Quds).

“The decision encouraged Zionists to push ahead their settlement expansion in the West Bank. Israeli plan to build hundreds of homes whilst the US Vice President Joe Biden is on a visit to the region truly shows American cover to such a settlement plan,” Ismail Haniyeh said on Wednesday.

The senior Hamas official also called on Arab nations and the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority not to move forward with the proposed peace talks. He said they should instead attempt to bring Palestinians together and support Palestinian resistance against “the Zionist occupation.”

However, the Arab League withdrew its support for indirect talks between the two sides on Wednesday due to the recent Israeli declaration on new settlement activities in al-Quds. A final decision is expected from the Arab foreign ministers amid concerns that they are heavily influenced by the US, the chief sponsor of Israel and the so-called Middle East peace talks.

Israel’s Interior Ministry on Tuesday said it had approved the construction of 1,600 new housing units in Ramat Shlomo neighborhood in the mainly Arab eastern section of al-Quds.

The announcement sparked swift condemnation from Britain, China, Lebanon, Russia, Turkey, the United States and a number of other countries.

The Zionist occupation renewed the administrative detention, without trial or charge, of Majed Abu Obeida, a Hamas West Bank leader, for the seventh consecutive time, Ahrar center said on Tuesday.

The center for prisoners’ studies and human rights said in a statement that the renewal was intentionally announced on the day that Abu Obeida was scheduled to be released.

It charged that the step was meant to weaken the detainee’s morale and to upset his wife and nine children.

Abu Obeida, 47, was captured on 12/11/2007 and was held since then in administrative custody in Ofer and Negev prisons.

Meanwhile, the ZO moved Hamas commander Yehya Sinwar to solitary confinement in Ramon jail.

Hamas prisoners in occupation jails held the ZO fully responsible for any harm done to Sinwar, noting that three other Hamas commanders were held in isolation.

Sinwar, who was arrested in 1988, is serving a life sentence and had spent most of his detention in isolation in Hadarim and Nafha jails.

The higher national committee for support of prisoners said on Tuesday that the number of oldest serving prisoners in ZO jails had risen to 316 including 114 who spent more than 20 years in detention and who include 14 who spent more than 25 years in jails.

It added that three prisoners have served more than 30 years in occupation jails the oldest being Fakhri Al-Barghouthi who completes his 32nd year in jail in less than a month, thus posing as the oldest serving prisoner in the whole world.

The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, said Saturday she was planning to stop in Gaza during an upcoming Middle East trip later on this month.

It would be the first high-level visit in over a year of an EU representative in the area, which is under Zionist blockade and is ruled by Hamas.

“I have asked to go to Gaza, yes,” Ashton said at the start of the second and last days of talks with EU foreign ministers in Cordoba, Spain.

She added that she does not have a precise date yet, but pointed out that her Middle East trip “starts a week on Sunday.”

Ashton’s predecessor Javier Solana last visited Gaza in February 2009, in the aftermath of the Zionist invasion that caused significant destruction in the area.

The Zionist occupation launched a large-scale War in late December 2008 with the claim to stop rocket launches from Gaza, which it blames on Hamas.

The Palestinian Islamic resistance movement, Hamas, has slammed the Arab League’s foreign ministers’ decision to submit to an American proposal for Palestinians to hold indirect talks with Israel.

In a statement released on Wednesday, Hamas emphasized that the resumption of Israeli-Palestinian talks under current conditions grants Israel another chance to resume its settlement activities, especially whilst the Tel Aviv regime is moving ahead with its illegal plans and blatant violations.

It added that the regime’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is not interested in peace and does not want any solution to the Jerusalem Al-Quds issue or the Right of Return for Palestinian refugees.

Hamas also criticized the acting Palestinian Authority Chief Mahmoud Abbas for attempting to gain ‘Arab recognition’ for his talks with the Israeli regime while Tel Aviv continues its settlement activities and military assaults.

The Palestinian movement described Abbas’s stance as “submission to the US administration.” He took the decision to revive negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians in order to obtain Washington’s financial aid.

The Arab ministers, gathered in the hall of the League of Arab States in central Cairo on Wednesday, backed the resumption of the US-mediated talks for another four months.

Syria, a staunch opponent of Israel, declared that the Arab League decision was not reached by a consensus and that it appeared to serve as a “political cover” for a Palestinian decision already taken.

Hamas and Islamic Jihad urged an escalation of protests in the West Bank on Sunday, against the Zionist assault on Palestinian religious sites.

Islamic Jihad staged a mass rally in Gaza denouncing renewed violence at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem and Zionist recent decision to lay claim to two holy sites in Bethlehem and Al Khalil.

Islamic Jihad leader Muhammad Al-Hindi told the assembled crowd that Israel “only understands the language of force. This settlement, called Israel, cannot intimidate our people and our resistance through aggression.

The Zionist forces stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, home to Islam’s third holiest site, early on Sunday in response to reports of stone throwing. Right-wing Zionist groups have called for the destruction of the mosque, which sits atop the site believed by some Jews to be an ancient Jewish temple.

One week earlier, the Zionist occupation decided to list the Ibrahimi Mosque in Al Khlil and Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem as heritage sites, sparking days of Palestinian protests.

Hamas also issued a statement condemning Zionist forces’ intrusion into the Al-Aqsa compound earlier on Sunday.

Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said the Zionist entity demonstrated its desire “to impose Jewish control over Jerusalem and the holy Al-Aqsa Mosque paving the way for the establishment of a Jewish, racist, extremist state.”

Barhum added, “to our deep regret, this assault continues under an Arab, Islamic, and international silence over these events, including the Judaization and destruction of Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa.”

He called on Palestinians “to continue the intifada and the anger that began in Al Khlil, Jerusalem and throughout Palestinian lands.” He also called for a “popular, Arab and Islamic uprising.”

Both Hamas and Islamic Jihad reiterated their calls on the Palestinian Authority to sever security ties with the Zionist entity.

Barhoum urged the PA “to halt any direct or indirect talks with the occupation and to unleash the Palestinian resistance to protect our land and holy sites.”

Hamas has called on Arab and Muslim states to impose pressure on Israel to force it to stop the raids on the Al-Aqsa Mosque and to end its occupation of Palestine and its holy sites.

The current scenario is part of a dangerous Zionist plot to Judaize the entire occupied city of Jerusalem Al-Quds and to demolish the Al-Aqsa Mosque, Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said on Sunday.

Barhoum added that Israel started the plot a long time ago when it intensified its settlement activities, displaced Palestinians, demolished their homes, cancelled their ID cards, increased its assaults on the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and Judaized the names of streets in the holy city.

He stated that these new Israeli attacks on the holy mosque, Jerusalem Al-Quds, and its people are being carried out to attain the Israeli premier’s declared goal of Judaizing Palestine.

He went on to say that the inaction of Arabs and Muslims in regard to what is happening in the holy city as well as the Palestinian Authority’s “connivance” have encouraged Israel to increase its assaults on the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

On Sunday, at least 17 Palestinians were wounded and seven others were detained during fierce confrontations between Palestinian activists using stones, shoes, and bare fists and armed Israeli troops in and around the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Muslims believe the frequent Israeli attacks on the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound are part of the Judaization campaign that targets the holy city of Jerusalem Al-Quds.

Spokesman for British Embassy in Tel Aviv says two of its police officers are in the Zionist entity to meet six dual nationals whose British passports were used by Hamas figure’s assassins

Most suspects linked to the murder of a senior Hamas figure are in the Zionist entity, Dubai police said Saturday as their British counterparts were in the Zionist entity to probe the killers’ use of fake passports.

Dubai police chief Dahi Khalfan pointed the finger at Meir Dagan, the head of Zionist secret service Mossad which is widely suspected of carrying out last month’s Cold War-style hit on Mahmud al-Mabhouh in his Dubai hotel room.

Khalfan’s force has published details of 26 suspects together with passport photographs, and has revealed it has DNA proof of the identity at least one of the killers.

“What is sure right now is that the majority of the murderers whose names have been announced… are to be found in the Zionist entity,” he said in comments published in the Arabic-language daily al-Khaleej.

“Dagan and Benjamin Netanyahu will head the list (of an international arrest warrant) if it is proven that Mossad is behind the murder,” the police chief said.

Khalfan said Dubai police had succeeded in identifying the suspects from closed circuit television footage, even though some of the suspects wore wigs during the operation.

A spokesman for the British embassy in Tel Aviv said meanwhile that two of its police officers were in the Zionist entity to investigate the use of fake British passports by Mabhouh’s killers.

“Two British police officers arrived a few days ago to interview British passport holders on the use of false passports” bearing their identities in the case, Rafi Shamir said.

In a related context, Zionist ambassadors in four European countries have been summoned for talks and the European Union has also voiced outrage over the use of fake passports after an earlier list of 11 people was released.

Following the assassination of a senior Hamas official in Dubai — a move which is widely believed to have been carried out by Israel’s spy agency, Mossad — the resistance movement warned the West against assisting the Tel Aviv regime in its unlawful operations against Palestinians.

Hamas official, Mahmoud al-Zahar, warned western nations against allowing Israeli agents to operate from within their territories.

“If the West will allow the Zionist enemy to turn its land into a place where Muslim Palestinians are murdered, or depart from it in order to assassinate our men, we will confront it,” said Zahar on Friday.

His remarks follow reports of the involvement of six Britons, three Irish and two German and French nationals in the assassination of Hamas official Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, who was murdered in his hotel room on January 20 in Dubai.

Dubai police say the suspects were most likely Mossad agents using fake documents.

Britain also denied any involvement of its nationals in the assassination plot.

“It was certainly Mossad but MI6 is investigating exactly what happened. The whole thing appears to have been cobbled together at the last minute,” said a British intelligence source.

A member of the Israeli intelligence service claimed earlier that MI6 and the British Foreign Office were tipped off that Mossad agents were going to carry out an ‘overseas operation’ using fake British passports. Britain, however, dismissed the report as “nonsense.”

British government sources dismiss as “nonsense” any advance foreknowledge about a Mossad plan to assassinate a top official of Hamas in Dubai last month.

A member of the Israeli intelligence service claimed earlier that MI6 and the British Foreign Office were tipped off that Mossad agents were going to carry out an ‘overseas operation’ using fake British passports.

“Any suggestion that the government knew anything about the murder before it happened is completely untrue, including the use of UK passports,” a Foreign Office spokesman said Friday.

‘We received the details of the British passports a few hours before the press conference [by police in Dubai],” The Daily Mail quoted the official as saying.

“We were able to respond to the Dubai authorities on the authenticity of the passports the next day,” he added.

Dubai police have released the identities of 11 people carrying European passports, including those of the six Britons, which they said were used in the killing of senior Hamas official Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in a hotel last month.

“The head of the Dubai police has also made clear that embassies were not contacted until shortly before the identity of the suspects was revealed,” said the spokesman.

Britain had earlier ruled out the involvement of any British nationals in the assassination plot, saying the murderers were mostly Mossad agents using forged documents.

British embassy staff in Tel Aviv said they had tracked down five of the six and offered them new passports. He said consular staff had not yet to manage to contact one of the British nationals in Israel whose identity was used in the cloned passports.

“This step will reduce the risk that these people might be inadvertently detained,” embassy spokesman Raffi Shamir said Friday.

Interpol has issued “red notices” for the 11 suspects to help find and arrest them anywhere in its 188 member countries.

Hamas has said it will give a response to the assassination of its senior official Mahmoud al-Mabhouh widely believed at the hands of an Israeli hit-squad.

Hamas has set up a committee in order to investigate the assassination of al-Mabhouh by Israel, according to the member of Hamas Political Bureau, Ezzat al-Rashq.

The Hamas member further expressed hope that the movement and the UAE would cooperate to bring the criminals to justice.

The European countries whose passports were used by the assassins should be held accountable, he also noted.

Mabhouh, a senior commander in the armed wing of the Islamic movement, was killed in his hotel room on January 19 in Dubai by a hit squad of at least 11 people carrying forged European passports, according to the Dubai police.

On Thursday, Interpol issued arrest warrants for the 11 suspects, 10 men and a woman, after Dubai Police Chief Dahi Khalfan Tamim called on Interpol to issue “a red notice against the head of Mossad… as a killer in case Mossad is proved to be behind the crime, which is likely now.”

Tamim further said that investigations have revealed that the Israeli spy agency Mossad was behind the murder of Mabhouh.

“It is 99 percent, if not 100 percent certain that Mossad is behind the murder,” he told the UAE newspaper The National.

According to Dubai police, the 11 suspects had European passports: one French, three Irish, six British, and one German. A French national, identified as Peter Elvinger allegedly acted as the logistical mastermind in the Dubai hit.

A senior Hamas official in the Gaza Strip, Ghazi Hamad, says the Islamic Resistance Movement is holding negotiations with the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority as well as others to reopen the Rafah border crossing into the besieged coastal enclave.

Speaking at a press conference in Gaza City on Tuesday, Hamad said Egypt, along with the Geneva-based International Committee of the Red Cross and the United Nations, are engaged in talks to bring the border crossing back into normal operation in order to protect the lives and dignity of Palestinians.

According to Hamad, 70 to 100 patients leave Gaza through the Erez crossing with Israel every day, while the Kerem Shalom and Karni crossings allow limited amounts of goods and humanitarian assistance into Gaza on a weekly basis.

“Several parties have suggested that Gaza and Ramallah form a joint police force to monitor the Rafah crossing,” Hamad said.

“This was discussed with Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, and he agreed. Another option would be for the Palestinian presidential guards and European monitors to resume monitoring.”

Israel has continued the closure of all border crossings to the Gaza Strip for more than two years. The illegal Israeli imposed blockade on the Gaza Strip, which has steadily tightened since 2007, has had a disastrous impact on the humanitarian and economic situation in the coastal enclave.

Some 1.5 million people are being denied their basic rights, including freedom of movement, and their rights to appropriate living conditions, work, health, and education. Poverty and unemployment rates stand at approximately 80% and 60% respectively in the Gaza Strip.

Three weeks of Israeli air strikes and a ground incursion into the Gaza Strip between December 2008 and January 2009 resulted in the death of over 1,400 Palestinians and the injury of about 5,450 people. Most of the victims were civilians.

The carnage also inflicted more than $1.6 billion of damage on Gaza’s economy.

Khalid Meshaal, the head of Hamas’s political bureau, has accused the United States of trying to foil Palestinian efforts to achieve the national reconciliation by pressuring Mahmoud Abbas not to go ahead with it.

In a press conference he held after meeting Sergey Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, in Moscow on Monday, Meshaal reaffirmed Hamas’s readiness to sign the reconciliation paper if its reservations on it were taken into consideration.

He also welcomed any Russian or international role to back the Egyptian efforts in this regard in order to end the Palestinian political rift.

Meanwhile, Meshaal hailed the Russian support for Hamas Movement, adding that it reflected Moscow’s keenness to deal with all essential players in the region.

He also denied suggestions that Moscow lowered its level of relationship with Hamas, highlighting that he met with high-ranking Russian officials including Lavrov and deputy foreign minister Sultanov, which he said was the third meeting since Hamas won the PA legislative elections in 2006.

Furthermore, Meshaal called on the international community to carry out its mandate in rebuilding Gaza Strip, which was devastated by the brutal Zionist war on it last year, saying that the financing for the reconstruction was available and needs only international and Arab mechanisms to facilitate the process.

Lavrov, for his part, pointed out that the meeting with Hamas’s delegation touched on a number of points including enhancing Egypt’s efforts to achieve the Palestinian unity.

Meshaal’s visit to Moscow was in response to an official Russian invitation to the Movement that grabbed broad media attention in that influential country.

Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh has scoffed at the blockade of the Gaza Strip, saying walls cannot force Palestinians to submit to external control.

“Gaza is surrounded on three sides; north, east, and south; to make it raise a white flag,” Haniyeh said on Monday, insisting that Egypt’s underground wall will fail to produce Cairo’s desired effect. “The escalation of the blockade and the siege is aimed at toppling the (Hamas) government and bringing the Palestinians to their knees,” he added.

The Gaza Strip has long been under siege by the Israelis, who have closed all Gaza crossings, preventing donated food and other basic needs into the area, which is home to some 1.5 million Palestinians.

The only border terminal not controlled by Tel Aviv is the southern Rafah crossing which is closed by the Egyptian government. Cairo also launches regular attacks on the Palestinians’ cross-border tunnel network in the area, filling the “food and energy vessels” with gas and water.

Late last year, the Israeli daily Haaretz revealed Egypt was constructing a subterranean steel wall to stem the flow of goods into the coastal enclave.

Haniyeh said that his government is entering “its fourth year in the next few days, and no one can deny the accomplishments and successes it made in achievements in security, stability, preventing chaos and restoring the rights to the people through courts and the judiciary.”

The Islamic Hamas movement came to power in Palestine following its sweeping victory in the 2006 general elections but faced pressure under Western diplomatic and economic sanctions.

In June 2007, Hamas had to limit it rule to the Gaza Strip after the rival Fatah party tried to dismantle the resistance movement’s administration and forged its own government in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

Hamas Movement has confirmed Sunday that its response to the Goldstone report didn’t contain any apology, stressing the Palestinians’ right to defend themselves and to resist the Zionist occupation.

Retorting to Fatah spokesmen in the West Bank, Hamas underlined that what Fatah spokesmen were talking about were Zionist hearsays meant to distort Hamas’s image.

“Those who asked Hamas to apologize to the Palestinian people instead of apologizing to the Zionists were indeed either liars or maliciously attempting to fish in muddy waters because their source of information was a false news report invented by the Hebrew media”, the Movement underlined in a statement it issued Sunday.

To the contrary, Hamas said, the Zionist crimes against the Palestinian people don’t need to be proven as media outlets were showing those crimes such as the ZOF troops deliberate targeting of Palestinian civilians, paramedics and ambulances live on TV during the war on Gaza.

Hamas explained that it only responded to claims included in the Goldstone report, and proved that the Palestinian resistance’s behavior was a reaction to the Zionist brutal aggression on the Strip.

For his part, Mohammed Faraj Al-Ghoul, the Palestinian justice minister, raised doubts over Zionist claims that Palestinian rockets killed civilians, yet, he added, the Zionist occupation has to prove those claims with evidence but till now it refuses to allow independent committees to check those claims.

Ghoul asserted the right of the Palestinian resistance to defend the Palestinian people and to repel any Zionist aggression against them with all possible means.

He also pointed out that the PA government in Gaza would follow up the matter till the UN refers the report to the International Criminal Court to prosecute the Zionist war criminals.

Dr. Mousa Abu Marzouk, the deputy political bureau chairman of Hamas, has denied Zionist press reports that Arab countries were involved in the assassination of Qassam commander Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh in a Dubai hotel.

Abu Marzouk in a statement to Jordanian daily Assabeel published on Wednesday said that the participation of any Arab or Palestinian parties in the assassination of Mabhouh was ruled out, saying that the Zionist entity was the only party interested in his murder.

The Hamas leader said that his movement should take part in any investigation on Mabhouh’s murder.

On the prisoner-exchange issue, he said that the delay in concluding a deal with the Zionist entity was due to its premier’s intransigence, adding that some Arab and regional parties do not wish for that deal to be concluded and put hurdles in its way to deprive the Palestinian resistance from achieving any achievement.

Hamas has rejected accusations leveled against the movement that it had committed “war crimes” during the last year Israeli offensive against the Gaza Strip.

A UN Human Rights Council report that was compiled by a team led by the South African judge Richard Goldstone has accused both Israel and Hamas of war crimes during the three week war in the region.

Hamas, which launched rocket attacks to retaliate Israeli air raids and ground incursion into the strip, said a committee it appointed to follow up on the report found no intention to harm civilians.

The UN report claimed that rocket attacks against southern Israel deliberately targeted civilians and could constitute a crime against humanity.

“Palestinian armed groups have repeatedly confirmed that they are abiding by international humanitarian law, through broadcasting in different media that they intended to hit military targets and to avoid targeting civilians,” the Hamas said, attributing civilian casualties to “incorrect (or imprecise) fire.”

The request for independent investigations was made by the UN General Assembly last November. The UN gave both sides until Feb. 5 to respond to the report.

The report also accused Israel of grave crimes against humanity among which the use of phosphorous munitions against Palestinians in Gaza.

Some 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis were killed during the war.

Hamas has denounced the Palestinian Authority for the participation of the caretaker Prime Minister Salam Fayyad in an Israeli conference.

Fayyad addressed Israel’s 10th annual Herzilya conference on Tuesday, following remarks by Tel Aviv’s Defense Minister Ehud Barak.

“The Palestinian Authority’s cooperation with Israel reached a political level and this is a serious indicator that this national side has connected its projects with Israeli interests and policies,” Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said in a statement.

The conference, organized by the Strategic Studies Institute, is held annually in Israel and contributes to decisions on Israeli policy and strategy relating to security and politics.

During his speech to the Israeli audience, Fayyad denoted the Palestinian Authority’s recognition of Israel’s right to peace and security, and pledged sustained adherence to that commitment, The Jerusalem Post said on its website.

Just as the Palestinians recognized Israel’s right, Fayyad reportedly said, so the concept of two states must be accepted in Israel.

He also offered Israelis his sympathy for the “pain” they have been through in their “long history.”

“Like you, we Palestinians have our own history. Right now we are going through lots of pain and suffering. And we have one key aspiration, and that is once again to be able to live alongside you in peace, harmony and security,” Fayyad said.

The presence of the Palestinian Authority’s caretaker prime minister in an Israeli meeting and his overly conciliatory gesture has irritated Hamas officials in the Gaza Strip, where Israel is strongly resented for the killing of some 1,400 people during the war Tel Aviv launched against the coastal strip last January.

The resistance movement, who came to power following a sweeping electoral victory in the 2006 general polls, has been resisting Western diplomatic and economic sanctions in order to force it to recognize Israel.

Hamas had to limit its rule to the blockaded Gaza Strip following an orchestrated coup by the rival, Western-backed Fatah faction against the democratically elected Hamas administration. Fatah, has in turn created its own government in the West bank.

Hamas leader Mahmoud az-Zahar says negotiations for a prisoner swap deal between his group and Israel have reached a dead end.

“As regarding negotiations, as of now the process has failed,” he said on Tuesday in an interview with the BBC.

“The main cause, well-known to everybody, well-known to the mediator, that after the interference of the political element, after the appearance of [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu personally, there was a big regression and retraction. For this reason negotiations have now stopped,” he said.

Az-Zahhar added that Hamas wants around 1,000 Palestinians to be freed from Israeli jails and also provide a chance for the captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit to join his family. But, he said, the Israeli side, after several rounds of talks, have moved backwards once again.

Another reason that the talks came to a halt was the assassination of senior Hamas military commander Mahmud Abdel Rauf al-Mabhuh in Dubai, allegedly carried out by notorious agents of Israel’s Mossad Intelligence Agency.

The assassination, the Hamas official said, was a “cowardly move meant to punish Hamas for its firm stance on the prisoner swap deal.”

Iran has condemned the assassination of a senior Hamas commander, calling it an indication of Israel’s organized state terrorism.

Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was assassinated in Dubai on January 20. Hamas officials say they have concrete evidence that the Israeli intelligence agency, Mossad, staged the assassination.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ramin Mehman-Parast on Tuesday also implicated Israel in the murder of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh.

The assassination, he said, “is another sign of the existence of the Zionist regime’s state terrorism and an indication of this regime’s violation of the sovereignty of other countries.”

Mehman-Parast expressed “surprise” over the global community’s silence on the assassination and urged Islamic countries to remain vigilant in the face of “Israeli threat.”

Elsewhere, he dismissed a report that an arms shipment seized in Thailand was destined for Tehran, saying the report was part of the ongoing psychological warfare against Iran.

Mehman-Parast also said Tehran had close and strategic ties with regional countries, adding that any attempt to spread “Iranophobia in the region will fail.”