Israel wants “to export its crisis abroad” through the assassination of Hamas deputy chief Saleh Al Arouri, a senior leader of the Palestinian fighter group said, TRT World reports.

“This criminal, arrogant Zionist enemy, despite its failures and disappointments after three months of its barbaric aggression on Gaza, wants to annihilate the people of Gaza,” Khaled Mashal, the former head of Hamas’s political bureau and current leader of its diaspora office, said in a statement.

“In light of its failure and its doubled losses of soldiers killed, it wants to export the crisis abroad. It wants to expand the circle of aggression, thinking that this would confuse the calculations of the resistance and the calculations of the region.”

“It thought that assassinations of leaders would break the will of the resistance and weaken the leadership, not knowing that this is a big delusion,” he added.