PLO: Egypt willing to transfer engineer’s remains to Gaza
Family of Hadar Goldin says Liberman not doing enough to stop move
Egypt does not oppose transferring the remains of a Palestinian engineer who was slain in Malaysia on Saturday to the Gaza Strip for burial, PLO Ambassador to Malaysia Anwar al-Agha said on Sunday.
Fadi al-Batsh, 35, was shot dead Saturday morning by two men on a motorcycle in Kuala Lumpur while walking to a mosque to perform prayers, according to Mazlan Lazim, the city’s police chief.
Hamas said on Saturday that Batsh was one of its members; Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman said on Sunday that Batsh was involved in developing rocket technology.
Several members of Batsh’s family from the northern Gaza Strip on Saturday accused the Mossad of killing their relative, while Hamas Politburo Chief Ismail Haniyeh said on the same day that the Islamist movement “holds Israel responsible” for his death.
In interviews on Saturday, Muhammad Batsh, Fadi’s father, called for his son’s remains to be returned to Gaza for burial.
“[There] is no opposition
from Cairo to transfer the body to Gaza through the Rafah crossing,” ambassador Agha said while visiting Batsh’s remains at a hospital in Kuala Lumpur, according to Al-Quds Al-Arabi, a London-based Arabic daily. “We communicated with the Egyptian Embassy in Malaysia, and the Egyptian ambassador expressed readiness to make the [necessary] arrangements.”
Earlier on Sunday, Liberman told Army Radio that Israeli authorities asked Egypt not to allow Batsh’s remains to be sent to Gaza.
“We told Egypt our stance that they shouldn’t bring in the body though the Rafah crossing. We are working through the appropriate channels,” he said.
Liberman also dismissed the allegations that the Mossad killed Batsh, suggesting he was slain as part of an internal Palestinian dispute.
“The man was no saint and he didn’t deal with improving infrastructure in Gaza – he was involved in improving rockets’ accuracy... We constantly see a settling of accounts between various factions in the terrorist organizations and I suppose that is what happened in this case.”
Liberman’s remarks came after the family of Hadar Goldin, an IDF soldier whose body is believed to be held by Hamas along with that of soldier Oron Shaul, demanded that the body of Batsh not be returned until their son’s is returned as well.
Tzur Goldin, Hadar’s brother, came out against Liberman’s “passiveness” on Twitter.
“We have a terrorist organization here that is setting the language and rules because the prime minister and defense minister have chosen fear and defensiveness,” Goldin wrote. “Liberman should stop talking and start working to fulfill his and [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s cabinet decision not to return terrorists’ bodies. [This is] cowardice.”
Education Minister Naftali Bennett, a member of the Security Cabinet, repeated his call to keep Batsh’s body out of Gaza in an interview with Army Radio. He said he plans to bring the subject up with Netanyahu.
“Just as we know how to prevent weapons from entering Gaza from Egypt, we can do the same here. If we really care about bringing back the missing [soldiers’ bodies], we can certainly pressure Egypt... Imagine if it wasn’t a coffin, and it was missiles. Could we prevent it? The answer is yes,” Bennett said.
Bennett also kept mum on who is behind Batsh’s assassination, saying: “I’m glad that other people are doing righteous work.”
Egyptian authorities had not publicly stated whether they would permit the transfer of Batsh’s remains to Gaza as of Sunday evening.
Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said on Saturday that the suspects in the killing, who fled the scene, were believed to be Europeans with links to a foreign intelligence agency, state news agency Bernama reported.
Ynet also reported on Sunday that Batsh was a member of Hamas’s armed wing, the Izzadin Kassam Brigades, and was tasked with procuring missile and drone technology.
Anna Ahronheim and Reuters contributed to this report. • Netanyahu.
Many public figures in America – particularly sports stars – have declined invitations to the White House so as not to be seen as supporting US President Donald Trump. Nobody considers them to be boycotting the United States of America.
But would an appearance at the Genesis ceremony really have been seen as supporting Netanyahu?
Those saying that the prize has nothing to do with Netanyahu – and her boycotting the ceremony is therefore an insult to Israel as a whole – are certainly misinformed. The prize has a lot to do with Netanyahu. It is handed out by the prime minister, and his director-general is on the prize committee. Netanyahu was the one who announced the prize’s creation in 2012, and it was labeled then as a joint initiative between the government, the Jewish Agency for Israel – a quasi-governmental group – and the Genesis Prize Foundation.
Of course, Portman knew all that when she accepted the prize, and has known that for the five months since then. She needed to look no further than the images of a grinning Michael Douglas, Michael Bloomberg and Itzhak Perlman – the prize’s first three winners – being awarded the prize by Netanyahu to know what she had signed up for.
It should be noted that the prize’s fourth laureate, Anish Kapoor, also canceled the prize ceremony in Jerusalem after receiving the honor. Kapoor said in May 2017 that it would be “inappropriate” to hold a festive ceremony “in light of the escalating war in Syria.” The famed artist directed the $1 million to five global NGOs who work assisting refugees around the world. Mengistu, an Israeli being held in Gaza; the future of a prime minister mired in scandal and potential indictments; and the deepening concerns of Iranian action along the border with Syria.
Ultimately, it was Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman who had the most sensible response to the scandal, when he was asked about it while visiting the Gaza border on Friday.
“We’re here talking about security,” he said. “We came here to see that the nation of Israel is receiving all the security it needs, and it is.” •