Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman refused to comment whether Israel was involved in assassinating Hamas engineer Fadi Mohammad al-Batsh in Malaysia.
Liberman also vowed during a radio interview on Sunday that al-Batsh's body will not be allowed into Gaza for burial until the bodies of murdered IDF soldiers Hadar Goldin and Oron Shaul are returned to Israel for burial but said that the Egyptians have the final say over the Gaza border crossings.
"The assassination can be attributed to James Bond," Liberman told Army Radio. "Terrorist organizations constantly seek to harm Israel. The demand to prevent the entry of the body is not clear to me. We conveyed to Egypt our position that the body would not be brought through the Rafiah crossing. We are operating in the appropriate channels."
Al-Batsh, 35, was killed by two suspects believed to be European nationals with ties with a foreign intelligence agency in a drive-by shooting on his way to dawn Muslim prayers on Saturday.
Liberman also dismissed recent Iranian threats to destroy Israel, saying that the Jewish state would do everything in its power to prevent Iran from establishing a foothold in Syria. "We have set a clear policy - we will not allow Iranian consolidation in Syria. We have done everything, the problem is not Israel," the defense minister said.
Liberman weighed in on the latest controversy surrounding American-Israeli actress Natalie Portman's decision to spurn the Genesis Prize as part of her protest against Prime Minister Netanyahu. "The prize does not belong to Netanyahu, it's a prize from the State of Israel ... I can only regret her decision," said Liberman.
Iran has escalated its saber-rattling ever since Israel allegedly attacked its T-4 airbase in the eastern Syrian city of Palyrma earlier this month. On Friday, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards deputy commander Brigadier General Hossein Salami warned that all of Israel's military bases are within its reach.
“Don't trust in your airbases; they're within reach. Don't have hope in the U.S. and the UK,” he said.
“Wherever you are in the occupied land, you’ll be under fire from us, from east and west. You became arrogant. If there’s a war, the result will be your complete elimination. Your soldiers and civilians will flee, and you won’t survive. And you’ll have nowhere to run, except to fall into the sea,” added Salami.