An article posted April 30, 2018 on the website of Hamas's military wing, the 'Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam Brigades, praises a suicide attack committed 15 years ago, on April 30, 2003, by Hamas operatives with British citizenship at Mike's Place, a bar in Tel Aviv. The article describes the terrorists as heroes who sacrificed their lives and "paid with their pure blood" to avenge the death of senior Hamas leader Ibrahim Al-Maqadma, who had been killed by Israel in response to a wave of Hamas suicide attacks during the Second Intifada. The article implies that operatives with British citizenship, rather than local Palestinians, were deliberately chosen to carry out the attack because Al-Maqadma was an important ideologue, well known throughout the entire world of Islam.
The perpetrators of the April 30, 2003 attack (Source: alqassam.net, April 30, 2018)
The following are translated excerpts from the article:[1]
"[In April many] years ago, the city of Tel Aviv experienced a martyrdom attack that shook the foundations of the entity [Israel] and caused the death and injury of dozens of people, in response to the assassination of one of the leaders [of Hamas], the ideologue Ibrahim Al-Maqadma. At precisely 1:00 a.m. on April 30, 2003, the martyr detonated his pure body with an explosive belt at the entrance to a Zionist bar called Mike's Place, near the U.S. embassy on Herbert Samuel Street. The two who carried out [the attack] were the martyr 'Omar Khan Sharif, a 25-year-old 'Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam Brigades operative with British citizenship from the city of Derby in Britain, and the mujahid 'Asif Muhammad Hanif, a 22-year-old 'Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam Brigades operative with British citizenship, from western London...
"The enemy admitted that, in the attack, the martyr 'Omar Khan Sharif killed five people and wounded 60, some of them seriously and nine of them critically. [2] The wounded were taken to the Zionist Ichilov hospital...
"In a move that caught the Zionists by surprise, the fighter 'Asif Muhammad Hanif, a Briton of Pakistani origin, managed to overcome the obstacles, reach Tel Aviv and detonate himself... unleashing a hell of fire and destruction. The loud explosion woke up the locals, who had barely fallen asleep. [They discovered that] it was not a dream but a heroic martyrdom operation by the courageous fighter, who wrote a tale of heroism and sacrifice with his pure blood and restored the honor of this nation... The café was packed with Zionists. It sustained heavy damage, and [even] the windows of neighboring businesses were shattered. One of the café patrons [later] said: 'We heard an explosion... After I got up and saw bodies lying at the entrance, I went back to my seat, grabbed my friend by the hand and dragged him out of the ruined café.' Immediately after that, ambulances came to take the dead and wounded... to the Zionist hospitals Ichilov and Tel Hashomer...
"Days later, the body of the second martyr, 'Omar Khan Sharif, was found and identified using DNA. Sharif was meant to detonate himself along with his comrade 'Asif Hanif, who was also a Pakistani with British citizenship, but the bomb he was carrying failed to detonate, apparently due to a technical problem...[3]
Explaining why British Muslims were chosen to carry out this operation, the article states: "The 'Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam Brigades decided that the response to the criminal assassination of the senior and well-known jihadi Ibrahim Al-Maqadma would be global-Islamic because Al-Maqadma was a great Islamic leader and thinker, whose death was a loss to the entire Muslim world..."
