Assassination
Al-Wazir was assassinated at close range in his home in Tunis at 2 a.m. UTC on April 16, 1988 at the age of 52. He was shot multiple times in the presence of his wife and son Nidal. Al-Wazir is widely believed to have been assassinated by an Israeli commando team, reportedly ferried from Israel by boat, and aided ashore by Mossad intelligence operatives. Israel accused al-Wazir of escalating the violence of the Intifada, which was ongoing at the time of his assassination. Specifically, he was believed to be the architect of the triple bomb attack at a shopping mall. He was buried in the Yarmouk refugee camp in Damascus on April 21; Arafat led the funeral procession.
In 1997, the Maariv newspaper reported on the assassination of al-Wazir. The report claimed that Ehud Barak led a seaborne command center on a navy missile boat off the shore of Tunis that oversaw al-Wazir's assassination. Up until 1 November 2012, Israel however did not take official responsibility for his killing and government spokesman Moshe Fogel and aides to Barak declined to comment on the issue. According to the report, Barak, who was then a deputy military chief, coordinated the planning by the Mossad, as well as the army's intelligence branch, the air force, navy and the elite Sayeret Matkal commando unit. Mossad intelligence agents watched al-Wazir's home for months before the raid. The Washington Post reported on 21 April that the Israeli cabinet approved al-Wazir's assassination on 13 April and that it was coordinated between the Mossad and the IDF. The United States Department of State condemned his murder as an "act of political assassination", and the UN Security Council approved Resolution 611 condemning "the aggression perpetrated against the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Tunisia", without specifically mentioning Israel.
Read more about this topic: Khalil Al-Wazir