An interesting story...
Quite similar to the story from DEBKAfile (here and here), in fact. Interestingly, the name of the bodyguard in the DEBKAfile story is Jassem Abdullah, supposedly an alias, not Abu Hamdi Mahmoud.
I have not gone over the two stories to compare all the details, but they seem to agree in some details. Whether this is because the story is true, or whether it's because both stories are a fictional pantload being fed from the same Israeli intelligence source, (DEBKAfile is somewhat suspect as a sole source of facts) remains to be seen. Would be very interested to know exactly where Gordon Thomas got the story from.