Father of senior Hamas military commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh poses with his son's picture at his family house in the northern Gaza Strip January 29, 2010.MOHAMMED SALEM
In Israel, it is being called the Dubai Affair - a political assassination with a very long afterlife.
In London, Israel's ambassador has been invited to the Foreign Office to meet Thursday with Britain's top diplomat. He's been called to discuss why several British passports, in the name of some British Israeli citizens, were apparently used last month in Dubai by a team of assassins who killed a senior Hamas official.
Dubai's police chief this week released the photos and names of 11 European passport holders - six from Britain, three from Ireland, one from Germany, and one from France - alleged to have killed Mahmoud al-Mabhouh.
Israel's security service, the Mossad, has come under scrutiny because seven of those passports bore the names and numbers of Israelis with dual citizenship.
"I don't know why we are assuming that Israel, or the Mossad, used those passports," Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman told Israel's Army Radio earlier Wednesday, though he stopped short of denying an Israeli role.
"Israel never responds, never confirms and never denies," he said.
While it has not been established that Israel was responsible for the killing, the Dubai Affair has raised several questions:
Why do people suspect Israel?
The Dubai assassination has the hallmarks of a Mossad operation: a large team, striking quickly, using recent technology (electronic stun guns and door openers) and getting away fast. And it wouldn't be the first time Mossad used foreign passports. In the 1997 Meshaal attack, the passports were Canadian; on other occasions New Zealand and British passports were employed.
It also fits a historic pattern of Israeli agents carrying out attacks on enemies in foreign countries.
In the early 1960s, when Egypt announced it had missiles capable of reaching Israeli cities, Mossad carried out a series of operations, including targeted killings, against a group of German scientists who had been recruited to develop the Egyptian missiles.
When the PLO was a threat in the 1970s, Israeli agents conducted several actions, the most famous in 1973, when PLO headquarters in Beirut was hit. The raid was led by Ehud Barak, who dressed as a woman for the attack and went on to become Israel's prime minister and is the current Defence Minister.
In 1988, Fatah's No. 2, Khalil Wazir (Abu Jihad), was assassinated in Tunis and, two years later, Canadian ballistics scientist Gerald Bull was killed in Brussels. Dr. Bull was developing a super-sized cannon for Iraq, capable of striking Israel.
More recently, Israel targeted and killed Fathi Shkaki, the leader of Islamic Jihad, in Malta in 1995; attempted to assassinate a leading Hamas figure, Khaled Meshaal, in Jordan in 1997; and is widely believed to have blown up Imad Mugniyah, a leading Hezbollah figure, in Damascus in 2008.
What would be the motive?
Hebrew University sociologist Nachman Ben-Yehuda, in his book Political Assassinations by Jews , says that assassinations attributed to Israel should be viewed as "executions" carried out usually as a form of "justice" for crimes against Israelis, or as a deterrent. In Mr. al-Mabhouh's case, it would have been both. Mr. al-Mabhouh was responsible for the abduction and killing of two Israeli soldiers in 1989, and more recently was apparently involved in arranging for Iranian weapons to be smuggled to Gaza.
Why would the assassins use Israeli IDs?
Most security specialists say that when trying to carry out a lie, it's best to use as much of the truth as possible. For that reason they would have wanted to use real IDs, rather than complete fakes. As for why Israeli agents would have used Israeli IDs, it would probably be because they never expected to be detected. The plot was to kill Mr. al-Mabhouh and make it look like a natural death. It almost succeeded. By the time it was surmised he had been killed, the assassins were long gone. Not one of the 11 European passport holders was in Dubai more than 19 hours.
Israeli security specialists have marvelled this week at Dubai's capability to detect the assassination and to produce an impressive list of suspects. Few Israelis imagined it possible.
Why does Israel have a policy of not confirming or denying?
Rather like a nuclear policy that neither confirms nor denies it has nuclear weapons, Israel gets the benefit of being feared for its ability to reach out and kill enemies (even if it isn't always the perpetrator) without the repercussions from admission.
In the case of assassinations, since it is Israel's Prime Minister who must authorize any such action, admission would mean the Prime Minister's name could be on an international arrest warrant.
What do Israelis think of it all?
Israelis overwhelmingly believe their security service carried out the assassination, and most think it's a good thing: an enemy who deserved it, they reason.
Others caution that the repercussions of such an act outweigh its benefits. Amir Oren, a leading security analyst writing on the front page of Wednesday's Haaretz newspaper, called for the removal of Mossad chief Meir Dagan.
Not only might such an action upset European friends, but it also would set back ties with the emirate. Just this week Israeli tennis player Shahar Peer has been competing in Dubai.
Who else might have done it?
It's been suggested that members of Fatah, bitter rivals to Hamas, might have carried out the killing, though they are not known for such sophisticated operations. Egypt, which fears the growth of Iranian-backed Islamists in Gaza, is another suspect. Rafael Eitan, a former Mossad official responsible for the abduction of Adolf Eichmann, says it was carried out by some other country wanting to blame Israel.