SEVENTY BULLETS AND AN EXPLODING PHONE
ONE of the most spectacular killings attributed to The Mossad took place in 1987 in Tunis, where top PLO aide Khalil al-Wazir was living.
The operation involved some 30 agents, who reached the Tunisian coastline in small boats.
Some of them pretended to be tourists while making their way to the house of the most important henchman of then PLO leader Yasser Arafat.
Others took up positions wearing Tunisian army uniforms.
Flying overhead during the operation was an Israeli Boeing 707, which was meant to jam all communications on the ground.
The assassination squad forced its way into the house and killed a few servants before turning their guns – and 70 bullets – on al-Wazir in front of his wife and children.
In October 1995, Fathi Shikaki, a member of the Palestinian terrorist group Islamic Jihad, was killed in Malta by an assassin who rode up on a motorcycle and shot his victim three times in the head.
In 1996, Yehiyeh Ayyash, the notorious Hamas bombmaker known as “The Engineer”, was killed in the Gaza Strip when his booby-trapped cell phone exploded.
And in September 2004, another leading member of Hamas – Izz Eldine Subhi Sheik Khalil – met his end in Damascus when an explosive detonated beneath his car.
Alhough Israel did not officially take responsibility for the attack, it was understood as being a signal to Syria’s leaders that even their capital city was not beyond the reach of Israeli agents.