Bar Refaeli to star in comedy about 2010 alleged Mossad hit

Upcoming film to parody alleged Israeli assassination of senior Hamas member Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai.

Israeli model Bar Refaeli is set to join the cast of an upcoming Israeli-French film that will poke fun at the 2010 assassination of senior Hamas official Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai.

Refaeli joined the cast along with Shai Avivi, who took over the role held by Shlomo Bar-Abba, who had to leave the project because of a scheduling conflict. Avivi will play a veteran Mossad agent who once commanded assassination teams but who was later relieved of his operational duties and given a desk job.

The film is called Kidon (Javelin) and is based on the events surrounding the assassination of senior Hamas figure Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, which took place in Dubai in 2010.

In real life, the assassination, widely believed to be carried out by the Mossad, generated widespread media coverage, including closed-circuit camera footage allegedly showing members of the assassination team in tennis garb in Mabhouh's hotel.

In the film, those most surprised of all by the assassination, according to the plot line, are the members of the Mossad itself - the only ones who know that the alleged Mossad agents had no connection with the Israeli espionage service.

Soon enough, the Israeli police learn that the assassins were really small-time criminals, a French-Israeli group of swindlers whose members include a beautiful university student, a fraud expert, and a professional document counterfeiter who also runs a house of ill repute in Tel Aviv.

The plot unfolds with the Mossad and police racing against the clock to ascertain the true identities of the hit squad - and what might have led them to carry out the assassination.

They ultimately discover that what appeared to be a Mossad hit against a Hamas figure was really an elaborate fraud that involved French, Russian and Iranian diplomats, as well as figures from within the Mossad.

Refaeli and Avivi will be joined by Reymond Amsalem, Liron Levo, Salim Dau, Sasson Gabai, Israel Katorza, Amos Tamam, Menashe Noy, and a crew of French actors.

The film will be directed by Emmanuel Nakash, and produced by Michael Sharfstein, as well as Moshe and Leon Edery, with filming set to begin next month.