JERUSALEM: Israel’s Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman has dismissed claims the country’s spy agency was behind the assassination of a Palestinian scientist in Malaysia, suggesting instead that his killing was a “settling of accounts.”
Speaking to Israeli radio, Lieberman described the dead Palestinian, a member of Hamas, as “no saint” and said he had been involved in rocket production.
Fadi Mohammed Al-Batsh, 35, was killed in a Kuala Lumpur drive-by shooting on Saturday, according to Malaysian authorities, with his family accusing Israel’s Mossad spy agency of the assassination.
Hamas said Al-Batsh, a research scientist specializing in energy issues, was one of its members.
“There’s a tradition among terror organizations of blaming Israel for every instance of settling of accounts,” Lieberman told public radio, noting the reports that Al-Batsh’s work involved improving the range and accuracy of rockets.
“The man was no saint and settling accounts among terror groups and different factions is something we see all the time,” he said. “I assume this was the case here too.”
An autopsy was being carried out Sunday on the body of Al-Batsh, who was walking to dawn prayers at a local mosque in the Kuala Lumpur suburb of Gombak when he was shot by two gunmen riding a motorcycle, Malaysian officials said.
At the crime scene, police markers indicated 14 bullets had been sprayed at the victim, some of them hitting a wall.
Malaysian Home Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi was quoted by the state-run Bernama news agency as saying Al-Batsh was “an electrical engineer and an expert at making rockets.”
Militants in Hamas-ruled Gaza fire rockets at southern Israel, but usually without casualties.
Malaysia’s police chief Mohamad Fuzi Harun said a task force has been formed to investigate the killing but would not speculate on the motive or whether foreign assassins were involved.
Photos of the two suspects provided by witnesses showed they looked like Europeans, he told a news conference on Sunday afternoon.
When asked if there was evidence of foreign involvement in the killing, he said: “We are still investigating the motive. I urge people not to make any conclusion.”
No arrests have been made and the murder weapon has not been recovered, he said.
Palestinian representative to Malaysia Anwar Al-Agha said Al-Batsh’s body would be taken back to the Palestinian territories for burial.
Mohammed Shedad, 17, a student and a relative of the victim, also blamed Mossad for the killing.
“It is definitely the work of Mossad. Fadi is a very clever person, anyone who is clever is a threat to Israel,” he said.
“Fadi is a Hamas member and knows how to make rockets. So (Israel) think he is dangerous.”
Al-Batsh was married with three young children and had lived in Malaysia for 10 years.
It was the second high-profile killing of a foreigner in Malaysia in just over a year.
In February 2017, assassins smeared the banned VX nerve agent on the face of Kim Jong Nam, the estranged half-brother of North Korea’s leader, at Kuala Lumpur International Airport, killing him within minutes.
The Mossad is believed to have assassinated Palestinian militants and scientists in the past, but rarely confirms such operations.
Hamas has accused Mossad of assassinating one of its drone experts — Mohammed Zouari — in Tunisia in 2016, and the spy agency is also believed to have been behind the 2010 murder of top Hamas militant Mahmud Al-Mabhuh in a Dubai hotel.
In Iran, a total of five scientists — four of them involved in the country’s nuclear program — were killed in bomb and gun attacks in Tehran between 2010 and 2012 at the height of tensions over the country’s nuclear ambitions.
Iran has accused Mossad and the CIA of ordering the killings.
Tensions between Israel and Gaza are high, with 38 Palestinians killed in four weeks of clashes along the border.
On Sunday, Israel announced the arrest of 19 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, 15 of them allegedly affiliated with Hamas in Gaza “who were instructed to carry out different missions on behalf of the Hamas terror organization,” the army said.
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Mossad not behind Palestinian scientist’s death, says Lieberman
Mossad not behind Palestinian scientist’s death, says Lieberman
UN warns clock ticking for Sudan’s children
- UNICEF says in parts of North Darfur, more than half of all children are acutely malnourished
- UN-backed experts have said famine is spreading in Sudan’s western Darfur region
GENEVA: The United Nations warned Tuesday that time was running out for malnourished children in Sudan and urged the world to “stop looking away.”
Famine is spreading in Sudan’s western Darfur region, UN-backed experts warned last week, with the grinding war between the army and paramilitary forces leaving millions hungry, displaced and cut off from aid.
Global food security experts say famine thresholds for acute malnutrition have been surpassed in North Darfur’s contested areas of Um Baru and Kernoi.
Ricardo Pires, spokesman for the UN children’s agency UNICEF, said the situation was getting worse for children by the day, warning: “They are running out of time.”
In parts of North Darfur, more than half of all children are acutely malnourished, he told a press conference in Geneva.
“Extreme hunger and malnutrition come to children first: the youngest, the smallest, the most vulnerable, and in Sudan it’s spreading,” he said.
Fever, diarrhea, respiratory infections, low vaccination coverage, unsafe water and collapsing health systems are turning treatable illnesses “into death sentences for already malnourished children,” he warned.
“Access is shrinking, funding is desperately short and the fighting is intensifying.
“Humanitarian access must be granted and the world must stop looking away from Sudan’s children.”
Since April 2023, the conflict between Sudan’s army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces has killed tens of thousands, displaced 11 million and triggered what the UN calls one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
Shible Sahbani, the World Health Organization’s representative in Sudan, said the country was “facing multiple disease outbreaks: including cholera, malaria, dengue, measles, in addition to malnutrition.”
At the same time, health workers and health infrastructure are increasingly in the crosshairs, he told reporters.
Since the war began, the WHO has verified 205 attacks on health care, leading to 1,924 deaths.
And the attacks are growing deadlier by the year.
In 2025, 65 attacks caused 1,620 deaths, and in the first 40 days of this year, four attacks led to 66 deaths.
Fighting has intensified in the southern Kordofan region.
“We have to be proactive and to pre-position supplies, to deploy our teams on the ground to be prepared for any situation,” Sahbani said.
“But all this contingency planning... it’s a small drop in the sea.”
Famine is spreading in Sudan’s western Darfur region, UN-backed experts warned last week, with the grinding war between the army and paramilitary forces leaving millions hungry, displaced and cut off from aid.
Global food security experts say famine thresholds for acute malnutrition have been surpassed in North Darfur’s contested areas of Um Baru and Kernoi.
Ricardo Pires, spokesman for the UN children’s agency UNICEF, said the situation was getting worse for children by the day, warning: “They are running out of time.”
In parts of North Darfur, more than half of all children are acutely malnourished, he told a press conference in Geneva.
“Extreme hunger and malnutrition come to children first: the youngest, the smallest, the most vulnerable, and in Sudan it’s spreading,” he said.
Fever, diarrhea, respiratory infections, low vaccination coverage, unsafe water and collapsing health systems are turning treatable illnesses “into death sentences for already malnourished children,” he warned.
“Access is shrinking, funding is desperately short and the fighting is intensifying.
“Humanitarian access must be granted and the world must stop looking away from Sudan’s children.”
Since April 2023, the conflict between Sudan’s army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces has killed tens of thousands, displaced 11 million and triggered what the UN calls one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
Shible Sahbani, the World Health Organization’s representative in Sudan, said the country was “facing multiple disease outbreaks: including cholera, malaria, dengue, measles, in addition to malnutrition.”
At the same time, health workers and health infrastructure are increasingly in the crosshairs, he told reporters.
Since the war began, the WHO has verified 205 attacks on health care, leading to 1,924 deaths.
And the attacks are growing deadlier by the year.
In 2025, 65 attacks caused 1,620 deaths, and in the first 40 days of this year, four attacks led to 66 deaths.
Fighting has intensified in the southern Kordofan region.
“We have to be proactive and to pre-position supplies, to deploy our teams on the ground to be prepared for any situation,” Sahbani said.
“But all this contingency planning... it’s a small drop in the sea.”
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