Mahmoud al-Mabhouh

Mabhouh's nephew Ahmad also joined Hamas and became an engineering and sabotage officer in a Hamas unit near Jabaliya. He was assassinated in an Israeli attack during the 2014 Israel-Gaza conflict.

Initially, Dubai authorities believed al-Mabhouh had died of natural causes. Results from a preliminary forensic report by the Dubai police found that al-Mabhouh was first paralyzed by an injection of succinylcholine (suxamethonium), a fast-acting muscle relaxant. He was then electrocuted and suffocated with a pillow. though their police investigation and final report on the matter would not be ready until the beginning of March. Signs strongly indicated that al-Mabhouh attempted to resist as he was being killed. The paralysis induced by this drug applies only to muscles – the victim remains conscious. Dubai authorities stated they were ruling the death a homicide and were working with the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) to investigate the incident.

The identities used by eleven of the agents have been publicly identified, based on passports that the Dubai police said were not forgeries, though both the British and Irish governments said the passports bearing their countries' names were "either fraudulently obtained or [are] outright fakes." The total number of suspects stands at eighteen, all of whom entered the country using fake or fraudulently obtained passports. Passports used by the killers were from the United Kingdom (6), Republic of Ireland (5), Australia (3), France (1 – suspected of being the hit squad leader and logistical coordinator), and Germany (1).

Al-Mabhouh was killed in the five-star Al Bustan Rotana Hotel in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, on 19 January 2010, having arrived in the country earlier that day from Syria under an alias and using one of several passports. According to police, al-Mabhouh was drugged, electrocuted and then suffocated with a pillow. Widespread speculation, which Dubai police allegations support, is that he was killed by Israeli Mossad agents. Allegations that the agents used fraudulently obtained passports from several countries led to the arrests and expulsions of several Israeli officials and diplomats in several European countries and Australia.

On 19 January 2010, al-Mabhouh was killed in his room in a hotel in Dubai. He had been followed by at least eleven Mossad agents who were carrying fake or fraudulently obtained passports from various Western countries, seven of which assumed the names of Israeli dual citizens. Reports indicated that al-Mabhouh was very closely tracked by his killers from Damascus airport to Dubai. He was travelling without bodyguards, and was en route to Bangkok. Although it was reported that he carried five passports under different names, Hamas officials in Syria reportedly stated that at this time he was using a passport issued in his own name.

Lieutenant general Dhahi Khalfan Tamim, Chief of the Dubai Police Force, announced on 18 February 2010 that, "Our investigations reveal that Mossad was definitely involved in the murder of al-Mabhouh ... It is 99% if not 100% that Mossad is standing behind the murder." Dubai police said the killers spent little time in the country, arriving less than a day before the murder, killing al-Mabhouh between his arrival at 3:15 p.m. and 9 p.m. that night, and leaving the country before the discovery of the murder.

In early June 2010, German prosecutors announced that at Germany's request Polish authorities had arrested a suspected Mossad agent thought to have played a role in the Dubai assassination of a high ranking Hamas leader

Britain's Foreign Office believes that the passports used were fraudulent; one report indicated that they had issued the passports in January 2010, the only difference between the actual identities being the photographs.

German officials said that the passport number which they received from the authorities in Dubai is either incomplete or does not exist. In June 2010, Polish authorities arrested a suspect in connection with the case. Germany has sought his extradition over the alleged misuse of its passports.

Australian and British investigators came to Israel to investigate the case. In May 2010, after receiving the final results of the investigation, foreign minister, Stephen Smith told Federal Parliament that the Australian government was in no doubt that Israel was responsible for the abuse and counterfeiting of [Australian] passports. Australia ceased co-operation with Israeli intelligence and expelled Israeli diplomat Eli Elkoubi. In June, The Canberra Times revealed that Elkoubi was an officer of Mossad leading Israeli diplomats to complain that the disclosure was a further act of retaliation.

According to a report in The Palestine Chronicle, al-Mabhouh had survived two assassination attempts; the first was a car bombing; the second took place in Beirut in 2009 and involved the use of radioactive poison which rendered him unconscious for 30 hours.

Two Palestinians, Ahmad Hasnin, an intelligence officer of the Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority (PA), and Anwar Shekhaiber, an PA official in Ramallah, were arrested in Jordan and handed over to Dubai, suspected of giving logistical and intelligence assistance. Hamas said the two were former Fatah security officials who both worked at a construction company in Dubai owned by Mohammed Dahlan, another senior Fatah security official, and that they rented cars and hotel rooms for members of the Mossad hit team alleged to have carried out the killing. Dahlan and Fatah denied the charges. Ahmad Hasnin came to the UAE in 2008, according to a family source.

He spent most of 2003 in an Egyptian jail. At the time of his death, al-Mabhouh was wanted by the Israeli, Egyptian and Jordanian governments, and living in Syria.

As Hamas's logistics officer, Al-Mabhouh oversaw the transfer of advanced weapons from Iran such as anti tank missiles, guided missiles and rockets to Hamas in Gaza for the purpose of targeting Israel. He also planned the abduction and killing of two Israeli soldiers in Gaza in 1989. In more recent years, al-Mabhouh had played an important role in procuring weapons for the al-Qassam Brigades. In 2010, journalists Yossi Melman and Dan Raviv alleged that al-Mabhouh had played a vital role as the middleman in forging secret relationships between Hamas and the Quds Force in Iran.

According to Hamas, al-Mabhouh was personally responsible for the abduction and killing of the Israeli soldiers Avi Sasportas and Ilan Sa'adon in 1989. In a video taped two weeks before his death and broadcast on Al Jazeera in early February 2010, al-Mabhouh admitted his involvement in this event, saying he had disguised himself as an Orthodox Jew. In May 1989, a failed attempt was made to arrest him for his involvement in the murder of the two Israeli soldiers and he subsequently left the Gaza Strip; his home in Gaza was demolished by Israel in 1989 as retribution for the attack.

In the 1970s, he joined the Muslim Brotherhood, and in the 1980s, he was reported to have been involved in sabotaging coffee shops where gambling was taking place. In 1986, the Israeli security forces arrested him for possession of an assault rifle. It has been reported that after his release, he became involved with Hamas.

Mahmoud Abdel Rauf al-Mabhouh (Arabic: محمود عبد الرؤوف المبحوح ‎‎; 14 February 1960 – 19 January 2010) was the chief of logistics and weapons procurement for Hamas's military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades. He is remembered for his assassination in Dubai (widely seen as an operation by Mossad, the Israeli foreign intelligence agency) and the diplomatic crisis his assassination triggered after Mossad agents allegedly used forged foreign passports to carry out the killing.

Al-Mabhouh was born in Jabalia refugee camp, Gaza Strip, on 14 February 1960. As a young man, he pursued weightlifting. He quit secondary school, trained as a car mechanic and later became a garage owner. Al-Mabhouh had 13 siblings, and was a married father of four.