Hamas names suspect in bomb attack on PA prime minister

Gaza-based terror group says fugitive Anas abu Koussa is its lead suspect in the assassination attempt on Rami Hamdallah

Hamas on Wednesday named a fugitive suspect in a bomb attack on Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah, two days after the terrorist group was accused of the Gaza attack.

Hamdallah was unhurt by the roadside blast that struck his convoy on March 13, in what Palestinian officials have called an assassination attempt as he entered the Hamas-run strip on a rare visit.

The Hamas-run interior ministry in Gaza on Wednesday said it was searching for Anas abu Koussa, born in 1993, describing him as the lead suspect. It did not give a possible motive for the attack.

Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah waves to the crowd upon his arrival in Gaza City on March 13, 2018. (AFP/Mahmud Hams)

A Hamas security source said investigators had arrested and were questioning three people, including two members of the PA-run intelligence services.

Another security source said he believed radical Salafist Muslims had planted the bomb, which lightly injured six people.

Earlier Wednesday, Palestinian sources told The Times of Israel that some of the detainees had confessed their involvement in the bombing attack and that Hamas claims they are members of the extremist global terror group Salafia Jihadia.

Hamas’s security chief in Gaza, Tawfiq Abu Naim, said on Saturday that two large bombs had been planted but only one of them detonated due to a technical malfunction. They were placed about 37 meters away from one another.

According to eyewitnesses, the device was detonated seconds before the armored vehicle containing Hamdallah passed. Ten security guards and staff accompanying the two, who were in non-armored vehicles, were lightly wounded.

Smoke is seen from an explosion that went off near Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah’s convoy in the Gaza Strip on March 13, 2018. (Screen capture: Ynet)

On Monday, PA President Mahmoud Abbas lashed out at Hamas, the terror group that seized control of Gaza from Abbas in 2007, over the incident. The PA says there are many officials in Hamas trying to torpedo the reconciliation attempts between the two rival Palestinian factions.

Among those named as trying to sabotage the process are former Gaza interior minister Fathi Hamad, Hamas co-founder Mahmoud al-Zahar, and Moussa Abu Marzouk, one of the group’s leaders abroad.