On September 26, 2004, Izz El-Deen Sheikh Khalil, a senior member of Hamas' military wing, was killed in a car bombing in the al-Zahera district of southern Damascus, Syria. The killing was blamed on Israeli agents. Officially, the Israeli government refused to claim responsibility, but unnamed Israeli sources unofficially acknowledged that Israel had assassinated Khalil as a response to the Beersheba bus bombings.[1]