Report: Dubai to deny entry to Israeli dual-nationals

Travelers suspected of holding an Israeli passport will not be allowed to enter Dubai, the city-state's chief of police told The National newspaper on Monday.

Dubai police chief Dahi Khalfan Tamim, speaking on the sidelines of a security conference, told the daily that Dubai immigration officials had previously allowed Israeli dual-nationals to enter on their other passport, DPA reported.

But following the January murder of leading Hamas militant Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in his Dubai hotel room, Tamim said police would receive training on identifying Israelis by their "physical features" and the "way they speak," according to the daily.

Tamim has said that police were virtually certain that Israel's intelligence agency, the Mossad, had dispatched a team of 26 suspected killers to assassinate al-Mabhouh, one of the founders of Hamas' armed wing.

Israel has said there was "no reason to assume" the Mossad carried out the murder.

Dubai police say the 26 suspects entered the country on forged passports, in at least some cases stealing the identities of Israeli dual-nationals.

Al-Mabhouh was found dead in his hotel room on January 20. Dubai police on Saturday announced the results of forensic tests on his corpse, concluding that he had been drugged with a general anesthetic and smothered to death.