Haneyya says killer of commander Mazen al-Fuqaha arrested

Head of Hamas’s political bureau Ismail Haneyya on Thursday announced the arrest of the assassin who killed commander Mazen al-Fuqaha last March and said the killer acted on Israeli orders.

Addressing a news conference held outside the home of martyr Fuqaha in Gaza City, Haneyya affirmed that the killer had confessed in detail about the crime and how he received orders in this regard from Israeli security officers.

“We have arrested the assassin who pulled the trigger. The murderer was following the instructions of his Israeli commanders; he confessed to the act and shared all the details with his interrogators.”

He also pointed out that the Palestinian interior ministry in Gaza would hold in the next few days a news conference to explain details of its investigations into the assassination of Fuqaha.

Fuqaha was a senior Hamas military commander in the occupied West Bank when he was arrested by Israel in 2003 on charges of planning attacks against Israelis.

He was sentenced to nine life terms but was released to the Gaza Strip as one of more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners that Israel let go in 2011 in exchange for soldier Gilad Shalit.

Fuqaha, 38, was shot dead in the head and the chest near his Gaza City home on March 24.