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Killing of Israeli in Amman Related to Violence: Israeli Official
All clues and evidence indicate that the murder of an Israeli businessman in the Jordanian capital of Amman was a political murder rather than a criminal killing, a senior Israeli Foreign Ministry official told Israel television Tuesday evening.
Yoav Biran, senior deputy director-general of the ministry, also challenged the remarks made by Jordanian officials who ruled out the possibility that the murder was related to the more than 10 months of Israeli-Palestinian violence.
The bloodshed has soured the relations between Israel and Jordan, who signed a peace treaty with the Jewish state in 1994.
However, an Israeli Foreign Ministry spokeswoman told Xinhua that Biran's remarks were not Israel's official stand, but only doubts raised by a senior official who was responsible for the Israeli-Jordanian relationship in the ministry.
She added that the investigation is still continuing and it is possible that the murder was political.
A statement read out by the spokeswoman said that the Israeli government expressed sorrow over the incident and has full confidence that the Jordanian government would capture the perpetrators and guarantee the safety of Israeli citizens in Jordan.
The Israeli, identified as Yitzhak Snir, a 51-year-old diamond dealer, was killed by unknown gunmen in the city center of Amman on Monday night. His body was found on Tuesday morning.
Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas' television station has reported that a previously unknown group, "Nobles of Jordan," had claimed responsibility for the killing.
"To our Arabic and Islamic nation: One of our units of the Nobles of Jordan carried out the killing on Monday evening of a Zionist Mossad agent who works in the suburbs of Amman under the cover of a businessman," Hezbollah said in a statement.
Two Israeli diplomats had been shot and lightly wounded successively in Amman last November and December.
In another development, unconfirmed reports said the Israeli Arab killed Tuesday morning near the West Bank settlement of Alfei Menashe may be a victim of political motives.
Reports strongly indicate that he was killed probably because he had been collaborating with Israel's security forces.
Earlier, Israel police said it was highly possible that the Palestinian gunmen, who shot dead an Israel woman and wounded five others in the same area last Sunday, might misidentify the man in a car with Israeli license plate.
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