It was something straight out of a James Bond film: A team of alleged killers in a swank Dubai hotel, some of them scoping out their target in an elevator while dressed in tennis clothes and carrying rackets and backpacks.

The suspects, seen on security videotapes, fall short of the dashing and debonair assassins seen on film. They are ordinary, unremarkable. They do not stand out or draw attention to themselves. But their mission, according to Dubai police, was a chilling one: the cold-blooded murder of a top Hamas official.