They've used biologically-infected chocolate, silencer-fitted pistols and bombs concealed in mobile telephones. Who would have thought the latest weapon of choice of Israel's assassins would be the humble hotel pillow?

During my four years covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the most common hardware used against Hamas leaders was the US-made Hellfire missile or the even more devastating one-tonne bomb.

The Hellfire certainly lives up to its name. Punching through the roof of a moving car, it shreds and incinerates everything and everyone unfortunate enough to be inside.

Then there is the 'sledgehammer'. I will never forget the stench rising from the ruins of the Gaza apartment block where Saleh Shehadeh lived. A few hours before an Israeli F-16 had dropped a one-tonne bomb on the high-rise building, instantly transforming it into rubble and killing the Hamas military commander and 14 others, including nine children.

Some of those kids were the source of the stench, their little bodies quickly rotting under the debris in the sweltering Mediterranean summer. The 'sledgehammer' had taken care of Saleh Shehadeh. But as Palestinians would remind me: "This is the life in Gaza."

It still came as a surprise to read that Israel's latest assassination weapon was a pillow. When a squad of alleged Mossad assassins smothered Hamas commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in a Dubai hotel room last month it reminded me of another elaborate Israeli hit - like the killing of al-Mabhouh it involved fake identities, forged passports and a foreign capital.

Unlike the hit on al-Mabhouh the weapon of choice was a poison aerosol spray, the target was the most senior Hamas leader of them all, and the assassins botched the job. To tell you this story I have to go back to March 2006 and a secret carpark rendezvous in the Syrian capital Damascus.

"We sit, and we wait." George stretched out his legs and closed his eyes.

I'd been waiting for this interview with Khaled Meshaal for months - a few more minutes wouldn't hurt. Next to me was George Baghdadi, my fixer and partner in this cloak and dagger adventure.

We were sitting in a mini-van at the foot of Mount Kassioun in northern Damascus. Damascenes believe this stunning range was the scene of the world's first assassination.

Legend has it that Mount Kassioun was where a jealous Cain murdered his brother Abel, his blood seeping into the soil and creating the rich red vein of rock visible on the mountainside today. We would soon be winding our way up this very mountain to meet a man who'd survived the assassins. But first, we had to wait.

After a quarter of an hour we were roused from our torpor by a shiny black Mercedes jerking to a stop beside us. All of its windows were blacked out, except for a small circle in the corner of the driver's window. The driver's face soon appeared in this transparent porthole. He nodded - a sign for us to follow. We lurched into gear and began grinding up Mount Kassioun, through the rich red vein of Abel's blood. Somewhere on the mountain Khaled Meshaal was waiting for us.

Ironically it was Israel which had helped put Khaled Meshaal on the Hamas throne. He'd arrived there by a process of elimination - he was the most senior leader of the Islamist movement still breathing. Israel had killed the rest, including Meshaal's mentor and Hamas' spiritual leader, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin (I'd interviewed him too, just weeks before the Hellfire consumed him).

But that didn't mean Meshaal was immune from state-sanctioned assassination. He too had been in Israel's cross-hairs. The attempt on his life reads like the elaborate plot of a Frederick Forsyth novel - two Mossad agents posing as Canadian tourists, an aerosol spray filled with poison, and an antidote exchanged for the lives of the would-be assassins.

Walking into his office suite in the Jordanian capital one day in 1997, Khaled Meshaal was approached by a young blond-haired man on the street. Before the Hamas leader knew what was happening the man struck. He sprayed a poison into Meshaal's ear and turned to flee. But his bodyguards pounced, and both of the Israeli agents ended up in Jordanian custody. But within hours the head of Hamas would be gravely ill in hospital. Under threat that their agents would be executed, Israel agreed to hand over the antidote which saved Khaled Meshaal's life.

So who ordered Khaled Meshaal's death? The answer is the same man suspected of authorising the assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai last month - Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

So Khaled Meshaal slipped through Israel's elaborately knotted noose and I would soon be able to ask him about his great escape.

We pulled up outside a spacious villa on Mount Kassioun. Inside Meshaal's safe house our gear was searched thoroughly, with special attention given to the camera and its batteries. Ushered into a room we were served sweet tea and Arabic sweets. Then in swept Khaled Meshaal. He was sandwiched in between his Praetorian guard, each minder armed with a small machine gun which bulged from under the armpit of his jacket.

"Hello. Thank-you for coming. It is nice to meet you." Meshaal spoke in clipped, rehearsed English. He smiled. Israel blamed this man for hundreds of deaths - the brutal murders of women and children in horrific suicide bombings. Having arrived in Jerusalem in 2002 I'd seen Hamas's handiwork - buses peeled open like sardine cans and cafes coated in a mixture of food, blood and body parts.

I interviewed Khaled Meshaal for nearly an hour. At the end I asked him whether he feared that Israel would make another attempt on his life. Meshaal smiled and replied in Arabic.

"We are not afraid of death, and I saw death in 1997... Israel's killing of our leaders gets us closer to our victory and it will not make Israel closer to theirs. Israel loses when they kill our leadership. My life is no more valuable than that of a Palestinian child in Gaza or Jenin. I am just part of a wider struggle to regain Palestine."

The interview was over. Meshaal whispered into the ear of one of his bodyguards. The minder strode out of the room, returning seconds later with two bags - presents for me and my cameraman Craig Berkman. Inside each bag were two boxes - one was full of baklava (Arabic sweets), the other contained a water colour picture of the al-Aqsa Mosque, the holiest Muslim site in Jerusalem and the most potent symbol of Hamas's goal of creating an Islamic Palestinian state.

I left knowing it was my first and last interview with Khaled Meshaal. My four years in the Middle East were coming to an end, and besides, surely it was only a matter of time before Israel's assassins came hunting for him again. But for now he seems to have eluded the Hellfire missiles, booby-trapped phones, and lethal pillows of Israel's assassins.